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Glasgow city centre is built on a grid system across some steep hills on the north side of the River Clyde and covers the large area from Charing Cross train station and the M8 in the west to Glasgow Green in the east, near the cathedral. The heart of the city is George Square. Here you’ll find the Tourist Information Centre (TIC), and the two main train stations (Central station and Queen Street station), as well as the Buchanan bus station; all are within a couple of blocks. To the east of George Square is the Merchant City, where the elegant warehouses of the 18th century tobacco and sugar merchants have been cleaned up and reclaimed by the professional classes, not only as the latest des res, but also as a fashionable place to eat, drink, shop and play. Further east is Glasgow’s East End, a traditional working-class stronghold which is gradually giving way to the relentless drive of urban gentrification. Here chic café-bars and art galleries rub shoulders with no-nonsense pubs, artery-hardening greasy spoons and sprawling markets selling everything from dodgy video games to second-hand clothes. The finest examples of Glasgow’s rich Victorian architectural legacy can be found in the commercial centre, stretching from George Square west to the M8. Here, in the streets around Blytheswood Hill, great canyons of stone were constructed, transforming the city into a Scottish equivalent of New York or Chicago – a city of high testosterone architecture. While George Square is the heart of modern Glasgow, the area around the medieval cathedral was the heart of the old city. In fact, until the 18th century Glasgow consisted only of a narrow ribbon of streets running north from the river past the Glasgow Cross and up the High Street to the cathedral. Then came the city’s rapid expansion west and the High Street became a dilapidated backwater. On the other side of the M8 is the West End, an area which contains many of the city’s major museums, as well some of its finest examples of Victorian architecture. During the course of the 19th century the West End grew in importance as wealthy merchants moved there, away from the dirt and grime of the industrial city. In 1870, the university moved to its present site overlooking Kelvingrove Park, and in 1896 the Glasgow District Subway was extended west. Now, Glasgow’s West End is a mix of youthful hedonism and suburban calm. The streets between Kelvingrove Park and the Great Western Road, around Hillhead Underground and Byres Road, are alive with students, shoppers and revellers. Nearby are the Hunterian Museum and Transport Museum, as well as Kelvingrove Park and the Botanic Garden. Head further along the Great Western Road, however, and the wild west becomes the mild west as you enter the residential districts of Kelvinside, Anniesland and Knightswood, all bywords for genteel respectability. South of the River Clyde is a part of Glasgow largely unknown to most tourists, except perhaps for the Gorbals, a name once synonymous with urban violence, but now more likely to inspire ennui rather than fear. Venture further south and you enter a different world, of sedate suburbs known as South Side. Here you’ll find two of the city’s most notable attractions, the Burrell Collection and Pollok House, both set in the sylvan surrounds of Pollok Country Park, and which can easily be reached from the city centre by train or bus. There are other reasons to venture south of the river, not least of these being to see Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s House for an Art Lover in nearby Bellahouston Park. Further east is another stop on the Mackintosh trail, the Scotland Street School Museum, and to the south, in Cathcart, is Holmwood House, Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s great architectural masterpiece.
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