Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool are former industrial cities, which are located by rivers or canals, that were once vital for their economy, now all of these British cities made the transition into vibrant cultural hubs. In this series, I'm meeting up with locals, who show me their favorite spots and give me some insights on the history of their home towns, starting in Glasgow, welcome to Life by the River.
Welcome to Glasgow, welcome to the first publication of the series, in this episode, we will do some city exploration, we will try great food and of course, we will sample some fine whisky. First of all, I'm attending a City Tour to get an overview and to introduce you to the main sights of the city, starting here at the George Square. With more than 600,000 inhabitants, Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, most of the historical sights and buildings, as well as a number of large murals are located in the city center, making it easy to explore the city by walking.
Another great thing is that most of the museums are free of charge, one of the highlights for me was the Glasgow Necropolis, a Victorian cemetery located on a very prominent hill to the east of Glasgow Cathedral. Well, this over there is the Glasgow Tower and it's one of the best spots to see the city from above and this is what I'm about to do now. After seeing the main tourist attractions of Glasgow, it's now time for me to see the other side of the city and for this I met up with a local, with Kathy, who lives in the city for more than four years now and she brought me here to the riverside, why? So the riverside is really where you see how Glasgow transitioned from being a heavy industry, shipbuilding town to a cultural hub. There's lots of free museums, new concert halls, the Science Center and of course, the beautiful river, but what is also good is that it's close to the hippest part of town, which is Finnieston and that's where we're gonna go now. As promised, we're now in hipster heaven, right? Exactly, so we're in Finnieston at the moment and we are in The Hidden Lane, which not a lot of people know about, it's really a very local insider tip and it's all about artists, artist spaces, little creative shops, designer shops and workshops and of course, the beautiful, colorful houses. It's teatime. From one hipster hotspot to the other, we're now at the Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, which is a huge event and creative space, as you see. Now I'm inside the Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, to meet with one of the creative minds working here, Alec, what are you doing here? So I run Trakke, we use Scottish materials to make bags for people to adventure everywhere from meeting rooms to mountain tops. We are in a place Kathy's really familiar with. Exactly, we're at the University of Glasgow now, which is the place where I'm a student at and it's a really special place, because it does feel like going to Hogwarts every single day of my life, but it's also really nice, because the area's still very cool, we're still in the West End, in the Hillhead area and there's a lot of bars and restaurants and a lot of little lanes with really quirky shops and a lot of places to eat and drink in the sun. For dinner, we came to Red Onion and this is a special place, because the chef here used to be the chef of artists like Guns N' Roses, so rock and roll in the kitchen. After dinner, what do you do, when you are in Scotland? You go and drink a whisky. This is what we're gonna do. Now comes my favorite part of the day, it's time to check out the nightlife in Glasgow, what's the nightlife like? So the nightlife in Glasgow, there's of course many clubs and bars and everything and underground music scenes, but what really makes Glasgow very special is all the live music in the pubs. Good morning, a good breakfast is the base for new adventures, here I am at the Singl End to get prepared for today. To get a little taste of Scottish nature, I went to the Loch Lomond National Park, which is just a 40 minute drive out of Glasgow. Loch Lomond is the largest inland stretch of water in Great Britain by surface area and often considered the boundary between the Lowlands of Central Scotland and the Highlands.
No trip to Scotland would be complete, without a proper whisky experience, so I'm here at the Glengoyne Distillery to try some.
And we'll start things off with a 12 year old. years old. Good. The Scots love beer as much as they love whisky and this is their Mecca in Glasgow, the Drygate Craft Brewery and I'm here to, pun intended, give it a try. So this must be the best view I've ever had in a restaurant. (laughs) I can actually see right where the beer is made and I got a few samples here as well. A few beers and a hearty dinner later, I got some proper sleep in my private room at the Euro Hostel to be ready for my next stop. And that's a wrap, Glasgow, I'm off to my next destination with the train, Manchester, which will be coming up for you in the next episode. If you liked this video, give me a thumbs up, comment below, share with your friends and don't forget to subscribe to this channel for new travel videos every Thursday.
Thanks for watching and see you next week.