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Glasgow advice please?

So, I've signed up for a race in Glasgow City Centre in October. I want to spend a few days there.

Having talked to some friends, it's just a case of getting a bus from the airport to the city centre.

Places to stay and things to do please?

Reply 1

Rum Ham

Wooooo you'll be near my home turf :tongue:

There is plenty to see and do in Glasgow. I've stayed a short drive away from Glasgow my entire life and even I've not been to every single attraction because there's that many :colondollar:

if you are into shopping then there's plenty of shopping centres. St Enoch's is in the city centre and just a 5 min walk from Glasgow Central and the subway is right next to it as well, Silverburn is a short bus ride away from the city centre and that is a more kind of upmarket shopping centre but still has your every day shops like New Look, Boots etc and for me personally, Braehead is the best shopping centre. Its huge! :eek:

Ikea and Xscape which is an indoor extreme sports centre with restaurants and a cinema in it is across from Braehead. Braehead is about 20/25 mins away from the city centre on the bus.

There's plenty of free attractions such as Kelvingrove art museum which is amazing. They have a lot of art as well as different sections of interests such as ancient Egypt, animals, old Scotland. The museum is in the west end area of Glasgow and across from Glasgow uni so its a very studenty area with plenty of cafes and its easy to get to on both the bus or subway. The transport museum is also free and its a must! I'm not a big lover of cars and all that but I found it to be a great day out and it took us hours to go around the full place because there's that much to see. There's also the Tall Ship behind the transport museum which is an old boat from 1800s (I think) and you can go inside it, ring the bell, honk the horn and there's a cafe in the lower deck. Visiting the tall ship is free too and its close to SECC so pretty much still in the city centre.

From Glasgow, you can also get to places such as Loch Lomond, Edinburgh, Ayr/Ayrshire, Arran very easily by train or bus and there's plenty of things to do in all those areas as well so you wont be stuck for choice :smile:

As for where to stay in Glasgow, since I live so close I've never needed to stay overnight but there's plenty of hotels both in the outskirts and city centres. In the city centre, I think the Jury's Inn is the best located as its just a straight walk down from the train station but there will be plenty more hotels if you look about.

Glasgow gets a bad name but honestly, there's nothing wrong with the city. Its no worse than any other city in The UK. It has its dodgy areas like everywhere else but as a tourist, you wont be near those places. I love Glasgow. I love the people, the atmosphere, the culture and I hope you enjoy your time there :h:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 2

Copperknickers

Original post by Tiger Rag

What kind of things are you into? Here's a quick list:

Museums/Art
- Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery - Glasgow's main museum, including natural history and social history, plus various artworks. Situated next to Glasgow University in Kelvin Park, the best place to go in Glasgow on a sunny day.
- Burrell Collection - one of the UK's largest private collections of antiquities and artworks from Asia, Africa and Europe. Especially famous for its Medieval crafted items, including weapons and stained glass. Situated in a modernist building in the middle of Pollok Park, Glasgow's answer to London's Richmond Park.
- Transport Museum, designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid. Includes various vehicles from throughout Scottish history, and exhibitions on cars, shipping etc.
- GOMA - Glasgow's modern art gallery, mainly famous for having an equestrian statue outside which people like to place a traffic cone on during nights out. It has become one of Glasgow's unofficial symbols, after the council gave up taking the cone down only to have it put on again immediately. But don't underestimate Glasgow's modern art scene however - we are second only to London in number of residents awarded the Turner prize, largely due to the presence of the Glasgow Art School, itself an architectural attraction designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh.

Music/Culture
- King Tut's - voted Britain's best live music venue. Has been one of the incubators of bands that would go on to become extremely famous.
- Various other gig venues and nightclubs, including Scotland's largest music venue, the Hydro.
- Check one of the Glasgow tourism websites for a list of what's on. There is usually some kind of festival going on in the Summer, and in recent years the Edinburgh Fringe has had a tendency to overflow into it's larger neighbouring city.

Food/Drink
- Oran Mor - a converted church which is one of Glasgow's better known bars, noted for its lunchtime theatre performances and its huge selection of whiskies and beers.
- Ashton Lane, situated off Byres Road, next to the university. Home to a variety of hipsterish bars, a boutique independent cinema, plus the Ubiquitous Chip, Ketchup and other eateries.
- Glasgow is arguably the home of Chicken Tikka Masala and one of the UK's best hotspots for Indian food. Check out especially Mother India's Cafe, a tapas-style but authentic Indian cafe serving the best Indian food this side of Mumbai at attractively low prices.

History/Nature
- Loch Lomond is a short train journey away, and the Isle of Arran is a train journey plus a passenger ferry.
- Glasgow doesn't have much in the way of historic sites, but Edinburgh is only 40 minutes by train, as is Stirling. The Necropolis is quite interesting however, a graveyard which is home to the resting places of some of Britain's greatest industrialists, religious figures and others. The tours are very well done and informative, if you like that sort of thing: you can find out not just about the famous shipping industry, but also Glasgow's connection to the slave trade, and the little known Scottish reformation (completely separate to the English reformation).