Glasgow

Urban Glasgow boasts lively culture and Victorian splendor

Glasgow was settled much earlier than its Scottish rival Edinburgh because it was an ideal place to ford the River Clyde, which later gained a reputation for shipbuilding and industry. For the traveler t0oday Glasgow resembles nothing but a modern city. It has overcome its 20th-century associations with grime, grit, and gangsters -- and now it is arguably more vibrant than Edinburgh, with a vigorous indigenous music and art scene.

In the 6th century, St. Kentigern (or St. Mungo) is believed to have begun a monastery at the site of Glasgow Cathedral, a hillside along a creek that feeds into the River Clyde. Aside from the Cathedral itself, practically none of the medieval ecclesiastical center (including a university) remains. And much of its historical records (kept at the Cathedral) were swept away and lost during the Reformation. Without a picturesque castle or twee palace, it exemplifies urban Great Britain: historic, dynamic, increasingly cosmopolitan, and attuned to the world. In 1990, it was named European Culture Capital and in 1999, U.K. City of Architecture and Design.

© 2009, Wiley Publishing, Inc.