While its reputation as a gritty industrial town is well-earned, Glasgow is also a fantastically stylish city, home to a diverse mix of music, art, entertainment and culture. All up, Glasgow has got it going on! It is an extremely cool, happening metropolis with a vibrant alternative and contemporary arts scene that is constantly reinventing itself. So on your next trip to Scotland be sure to spend some time in Edinburgh, of course. Yet don’t overlook Glasgow, don’t you dare.

Glasgow: Top Museums & Galleries

Crossing over the river of traffic flowing around the centre of town takes you into the heart of Glasgow. The CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts offers a cutting edge program of visual arts exhibitions, contemporary music and film, including a tango night, special multimedia events, and a great children’s activity program. The bar/café is one of the few decent place for coffee that I found along Sauchiehall St, and will caffeinate you for the first stage of your explorations.

The Tron Theatre in the fascinating Merchant City area offers an unusual night out, with up and coming directors, international festivals and a highly innovative programming policy. The bohemian atmosphere continues in the wonderful Bar Gandolfi (64 Albion St) just around the corner and up the stairs, renowned for serving champagne with mince and tatties…

The People’s Palace is one of the most unusual museums, highlighting the worker’s solidarity movement and socialist past of this highly industrial city. One of the only places in the Western world to actively support of the Communist states, there have been political protests on the cities bridges, and one of the statues along the river (next to the miniature ‘Golden Gate’) is of a woman with arms upraised, proclaiming “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”

Glasgow: Pop Culture & Art

Glasgow: I love your friends they’re all so arty

Transmission Gallery is part of the diverse and increasingly high-profile Glasgow arts scene that has evolved over the last 25 years (even making it into pop culture thanks to Franz Ferdinand: “Here we are at the Transmission party, I love your friends they’re all so arty.”) The gallery offers a place for local artists to meet, talk, and exhibit along with international visitors, and is a mainstay of the alternative art scene.

I took part in the Networking Artists Network day-trip visiting this and many other nearby galleries and the famous Sculptor’s Studio with a group of twenty artists, and discovered a thriving community of creative inspiration and activity in the shadows of the Gorbals apartments over the river.

The days of the legendary Chateau are truly over, and the official new hotspot for the ultra-hip and latest in cool, creative cultural happenings is Lowsalt Gallery. An artist run space with a DIY approach, wildly diverse range of interests, highlighted in the “free-wheeling curatorial approach… with a focus on short, sharp shows, inventive events and happenings,” this eccentric gallery is “fast becoming something of a Glasgow institution.” (Jack Mottrom Herald review).

If you’re lucky you might catch one of the parties organized by pointless creations, who recently returned from a summer with the circus, and are currently providing club visuals for Death Disco, the hottest thing for the young “straight, queer or not-so-sure.” A monthly night at The Arches, it’s an “alternative, open-minded environment to drink, dance, flirt and look HOT in.”

There’s always something happening at The Arches, one of the established arts venues in town, supporting and showcasing emerging talent and major artists, with live music, club nights, theatre and visual art. The stairway entrance to the bar was designed by Timorous Beasties with the socially timid in mind, so you can casually check out the hip crowd through the railings as you descend into this cosy drinking lair. If you feel like a more laid-back evening, Mungo’s HiFi presents Dub nights in various locations, including one adventurous sounding gig in a cave, playing a selection of dance-hall reggae and other fine beats.

Glasgow: Have a Snack

The Glasgow vegan+music empire is expanding again, the owner of cafe and venues Mono and The 78 (12-14 Kelvinhaugh Street) are re-opening a new Stereo in a bigger venue, an unknown Mackintosh building near central station that doubles as a bakery in the morning (20 – 28 Renfield Lane). On offer? Superb vegetarian food, including dairy-free cheesecake and fantastic veggie burgers, organic beer and comfortable surroundings, along with gigs like the launch of Fox Face album at stereo, and an in-house record store at Mono.

The Lighthouse just off the main promenade is “Scotland’s Centre for Architecture, Design and the City”, showing local and international exhibitions of architecture, design, technology and more. The building also contains the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Tower, and was the first public building to be designed by the city’s most famous architect, when he was an apprentice. The rooftop café is well worth a visit for the spectacular view, and you never know what leading lights of the cultural scene you may run into while devouring a bowl of crispy potato wedges.

Glasgow: West End & Off the Beaten Path

Kibble Palace Greenhouse

As you will no doubt find yourself wandering at some point in the West End, check out the Timorous Beasties shop for plush fabrics and wallpaper updating traditional designs with a surreal and contemporary edge. The Beasties host one of the best Burns’ nights in town, one year I managed to find myself a place at their banquet for a rollicking evening of bawdy verse, haggis, and whisky set out along their bounteous printing tables. Their designs are enough to make an itinerant wanderer yearn for a settled home base, just in order to decorate it.

An oasis of lushness on the Great Western Road and one of the hidden treasures of the city, Kibble Palace is the greenhouse in the botanical gardens. Originally built as a conservatory for the architects home in Loch Long, it was dismantled and shipped up the River Clyde in 1873, and now houses a veritable treasure-trove of exotic plants and spectacular flowers, all heated in a steamy tropical climate that will warm your bones on the cold winter days.

Walking through the grounds below the university takes you through a gorgeous park, following the turns of the river and looking up at the magnificent gothic-like spires. The newly re-opened Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum houses a spectacular collection of prehistoric animals, sculpture and art; including French Impressionists and a somber Dali, all re-interpreted in a post-modern context.

Just across Argyle St is the Museum of Transport, lingering here in the original warehouse until it moves to the newly designed quarters along the river in a few years. There is something charming about the displays of buses, trams and fire engines all crammed together into straight lines, while rows of vintage cars, motorbikes and gypsy caravans jostle for position in the rooms set off the main hall.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

Continue along Argyle St towards the city until you reach The Goat Pub, a warm welcoming establishment with superb home-made comfort food including pies and locally brewed honey beer. The upstairs room offers cosy nooks on the chesterfields or church pews and friendly company, while downstairs is often host to live music or the current sporting event with a lively atmosphere.

A little further away from the main drag and across the river is the renovated Tramway Gallery and Theatre. In an old tram factory, it houses hundreds of square metres of exhibition and performance spaces, and the shows I saw there include one of the most innovative use of staging and projection in a theatrical production I have ever seen, and on another visit, a gorgeous immersive bed of surround-sound and light that was almost trance-inducing in its intensity.

Glasgow: And Now For Something Completely Different

The changing face of the city is in evidence if you take a stroll along the River Clyde, where the abandoned Govan Docks are still a great place to explore before the BBC takes over the whole area, with the clean-up and redevelopment as a “media village.” For lovers of modernist architecture, just 30 minutes out of town towards Dumbarton is the futuristic Cardross Seminary, which has been given heritage status… and is a great day out if you like sci-fi wilderness.

–Jodi Rose

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s tours and things to do in Glasgow, things to see in Scotland, and Edinburgh tours. We’ve got you covered in Scotland, laddie.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 12:16 am and is filed under Destinations, Europe, The Art of Travel, Travel Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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