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In the UK we are sometimes tremendously ignorant about other parts of the country. I’ve met someone from Leicester who were unaware that people speak Welsh as a first language and it’s not just “made up” - a university graduate and not stupid, but she actually thought that. I’ve met Scottish people who thought Sheffield was in “Southern England” or that the University of Durham was in London (hint, try Durham instead. It’s up by Newcastle). I’ve met English people who didn’t believe there were mountains in England (ok, there aren’t many, but they exist) and told me I was lying when I produced a photo of me on top of Helvellyn in the Cumbrian fells, on the grounds that it must be Scotland (because England doesn’t have mountains, therefore any mountain must be in Scotland - circular logic 101). I don’t know what the cause of this is - perhaps it’s because the media have alway been so London-centric and never portray the rest of the country accurately. Perhaps in some cases it is even propagandistic since we do know how the Mail like to portray Scots as subsidy junkies, and the Guardian love to patronise any passing downtrodden Northerner (or for that matter, Glaswegian). Indeed, the Guardian are as bad as anyone, regularly running articles on Glasgow with the grimmest stock photos they can find. Of course, said photos are usually of streets that were demolished over 20 years ago, and in some cases pushing 30 years ago, but because for the Guardian Scotland is some distant planet only visible through powerful telescopes apparently, that we can only make vague hypotheses about but never visit, they lack the local knowledge to distinguish between the current and the historical.The consequence of this is that people’s opinions of other parts of the UK are so often just blatantly fantastic - “fantastic” in the actual literal sense of “fantasy”. Now, Glasgow is a complex place and clearly has its problems, but if you have never heard anything good about Glasgow it is probably because you have been listening to people uncritically repeating a combination of outdated stereotype, hearsay and ignorance, and in short you need to listen to people who know what the f^^^ they are talking about. Critical thinking time: Do the people who don’t have a good word to say to you about Glasgow strike you as being in any way experts on Glasgow in 2019? If not, then there’s your answer. Glasgow is an unfortunate combination of being famous and little known which creates a knowledge gap into which fantasy seeps in.Glasgow has a reputation of being one of the UK’s poorest cities but actually isn’t - the GDP per head stats say that it is actually the UK’s 4th richest major city behind London, Edinburgh and Bristol List of metropolitan economies in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia- it has only been overtaken by Bristol quite recently. GDP per capita is 50% more than e.g. Sheffield. On the other hand, it also has some of the UK’s poorest neighbourhoods. So how do these contradictory stats tie in together? Answer - it’s a very divided city. As well as grim inner (more usually outer) city neighbourhoods, it also has some of the UK’s wealthiest, places like Kelvinside or Dumbreck with street after street of 19th century houses that leave you wondering when a house becomes technically a mansion and when a mansion becomes a castle, or neighbourhoods like Hyndland and Dowanhill with their elegant tenements with stained glass windows, turrets and servants’ quarters . It is a divided city and an unequal city alright but the depiction of Glasgow as one vast pit of Stygian gloom and despair is pretty far off the mark and a gross oversimplification.That is the negative side of Glasgow. These inequalities and the fact that so many people who live on top of each other have such divergent experiences, lend the place a certain tension. However, from that nerviness, combined with its status as an ancient university town - Glasgow university is rated as one of the best in the world, never mind just the UK - and its traditionally strong industrial economy (and it’s had its recent problems but is still much stronger than most of Northern England for example) - all these combined, give Glasgow a boundless energy which has often emerged itself in art and creativity, often expressed in the very sandstone the city is built from.To quote the Rough Guide to Scotland “Glasgow’s architecture is some of the most striking in the UK”. Glasgow is not as beautiful as Edinburgh. It is however arguably more beautiful than any other major British city in terms of its built environment, although I’m not including smaller cities such as York or Bath or Stirling, all of which are arguably prettier. It is probably Britain’s best preserved Victorian city with buildings ranging from grand 19th century civic edifices to Georgian mansions to art nouveau tenements. The area around Glasgow University, Park Circus and Kelvingrove is, in particular, one of the most beautiful urban landscapes in Britain and large swathes of the city are very attractive indeed. As a result, Glasgow is one of the few large British cities other than London or Edinburgh which has a significant tourist trade. Why do they come? Architecture, that’s why, not for the deep fried Mars Bars. (As pointed out by Charlie Taylor in comments - before all the stone cleaning in the 70s and 80s removed all the layers of industrial grime that had accumulated over the centuries, the buildings were somewhat harder to appreciate - this is perhaps where Glasgow got its reputation for grimness from).Here is a shot I took once of Kelvingrove Park, many years after the big clean-up. I’ve heard Glasgow described as “grey”. It isn’t - the skies often are, but the buildings themselves are warm shades of sandstone - golden or red:Glasgow is home to one of Britain’s great art schools and has a vibrant arts scene - music and visual arts, drama, dance - and is one of the UK’s main cultural hubs. A lot of this I think comes because it is so psychologically distant from London, that it doesn’t suffer from the same “brain drain” as some parts of the country, so instead people create their own scene. If you think back to the Britpop era for example, Glasgow was famed for its Indie scene, which was very different in style and tone to the goings on in Camden at the same time. Glasgow’s isolation from London means it suffers in terms of its media portrayal because so often journalists fall back on stereotype in lieu of actual knowledge or experience, but gives it a certain vibrancy. Creative types in Scotland tend not to move to London with the same frequency. They move instead to Glasgow.As well as art, it has one of the UK’s best restaurant scenes and areas like Finnieston, the Merchant City or Shawlands are hipster heaven with sophisticated bars, cafes, restaurants with foods ranging from vegan Scottish to Spanish seafood to Malay Chinese. It has beautiful parks like Kelvingrove or Queen’s Park (where you get the best view of the city). It is walkable, lively and has a lot of vibe, all strong points in its favour.I’m not saying this as some outraged local who has never left his hometown BTW. I have lived in Seville, Toledo, China (a place too small to name so I’ll just leave it at “China”), Buenos Aires, Manchester. I’m pretty familiar with many of Britain’s major cities and regions, except for Bristol and the SW, East Anglia, or South Wales. Culturally, Glasgow beats Seville, a similarly sized city, hands down. It beats pretty much anywhere in the UK which isn’t London or Edinburgh as well in my experience, both in terms of culture and in terms of dining, varied nightlife, music and eating out. Architecturally, it beats pretty much anywhere except Edinburgh, Bath and the nicer parts of London (in the latter case it’s a draw rather than a win for London). In fact, I’d actually personally take the West End of Glasgow over most parts of Edinburgh except for the obvious Royal Mile/Princes Street Gardens panoramas. I’d take the West End of Glasgow over most parts of Seville too except for the grand, touristic “set pieces”, and those are two of the most beautiful cities in Europe.Sure, it’s not all great. The East End and North Glasgow are pretty rough. Fancy going for a walk around Possil at 2am? No? Me neither. There have been some unfortunate planning decisions like ramming a motorway through Charing Cross. Quite a lot of unfortunate planning decisions actually. The weather sucks in ways that have to be seen to be believed. But it amazes me the sheer mismatch between popular perception and actual reality. In some cases its ignorance, and in some cases ignorance bleeding over into actual racism-lite since a lot of the negative perceptions do rather tie in with well established anti-Scottish stereotypes.As an example of the latter, there was a famous and tragic incident a few years back when a police helicopter crashed into a bar in Glasgow city centre. I read an online comment in some newspaper - I forget which - by some idiot claiming it must have been brought down by stray rounds from a gunfight between gangs. The guy was actually serious - he honestly seemed to believe that central Glasgow was a place where armed gangs exchanged fire from automatic weapons on a Friday night, like its Mad Max or something. In reality, I am perfectly happy walking home at 2 in the morning the full 4 miles from Glasgow city centre to my house and have done many times over a period of decades and nothing has ever happened to me in my life. I feel far safer in Glasgow than I did in Manchester, Leicester or London, the latter being the only place in the UK where I have ever had anything stolen for the record, though to be fair Seville (which is far safer than most British cities) is the only the place where anyone has ever seriously tried to mug me.I have come back to Glasgow after living abroad for much of my life because balancing jobs, architecture and quality of environment, public transport (it has one of the best suburban train networks in Britain, plus the subway), culture, music scene, access to scenery (the West Highland Way starts on the edge of Glasgow), and eating out I honestly can’t think of anywhere I’ve been that would be preferable. It’s certainly preferable for all of these compared to Sevilla (except architecture and access to scenery), where I lived for 6–7 years and nobody ever goes “hey, I never hear anything good about Seville” do they? And while there are many good places to eat in Seville too- don’t get me wrong, it lacks variety in comparison. Weather is a tie. Glasgow is gloomier but then i doesn’t hit 49C in summer.In short, I would strongly recommend the original questioner or anyone else who is Glasgow-curious, to come up for a long weekend and see for yourself. If you don’t agree with me - there’s nae accounting for taste, after aw - then you can piss off and visit Edinburgh or Stirling for a day trip, so nothing will be lost. Give it a go.Some phone shots from my walk to and from work. They're not tourist shots but they're representative.

I was born in Hong Kong and lived there for the first eight years of my life. Hong Kong today is overcrowded, over polluted, lacks space for even the basic human needs, is far too competitive and the stress levels of it's residents is rising every day.Yes, Scotland is boring in comparison to Hong Kong yet that is only the perceptive and opinion of people who do not know how to entertain themselves outdoors. I have travelled quite a bit over Scotland. Falkirk, Edinburgh, Loch Ness, Aviemore, Inverness, Ayr, Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Millport, Wemyss Bay, Linlithgow, Stirling, Troon, Irvine, Prestwick, Loch Lomond, Alexandria, Dumbarton and drove all the way from one end of the A82 to the other which was full of double bends and killed me because I am claustrophobic. Scotland has the most stunning scenery on any day whether it rains, shines or snows.The gloomy weather nowadays is mostly everyday. We rarely get the sun hitting our faces. The people makes Glasgow. I have lived in Glasgow since August 1980 and I am very proud to tell people that I am an extremely proud Scottish Chinese woman. This makes people laugh and say in response “But you don't look Scottish” with a frown and a questioning face! It is merely banter and a tad of harmless fun. That is what us Glaswegians do best.The postgraduate education in Glasgow according to my 21 year old son is “Pure dead brilliant” meaning he doesn't need to attend his classes everyday because he has the option of catching up with his class work online. I have no idea whether this is an advantage or not. I never got into university education. From what I have heard and read about Glasgow’s universities, they offer great student accommodation to foreign students. They offer great support and many oversea students enjoy their university life here.

This will depend on your interests and your budget, it's well worthwhile checking out the free online guides to Glasgow before you travel and make a list of all the things that look like fun to you. Some of the guides include local quirky attractions and places to eat/drink, as well as the main city sights.Remember that Glasgow is primarily an industrial city, so the things you will see and do while you're there will in many ways reflect its history and current situation. While much is being done to improve things for the local people, it is still a hard edgy sort of place with much contrast between the Victorian areas of grandeur and poverty.For a good guide to the local area and many other places across Scotland and the UK, try the Never Be Bored online guide, which includes most of the main attractions and also many of the free public parks and museums, local bars and restaurants and even things for the kids if you're travelling as a family. You can even take a trip on the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world at Waverley ExcursionsGlasgow - things to do - fun days out