Walking & Cycling

To best discover Glasgow, old and new, at least two to three days are required. Try to avoid parking a car near the city centre although, if you must, there is good parking facilities at the St Enoch Centre.

Cycling

There is a rapidly developing Glasgow and Clyde Coast Cycle Route Network which can be used both in the city and through to outlying areas as far as Ayrshire. Details are available from the tourist offices.

Walking

A good reference point for starting a tour of the central and eastern side is Glasgow's Queen Street Station and George Square lying at the heart of the city. George Square, a spacious concrete piazza dotted with trees and flower-beds and surrounded by wide streets, was also the heart of Victorian Glasgow. At its centre is the 80ft (24m) high column and statue to Sir Walter Scott who, in truth, had little to do with the town. The column had been intended for a statue of George III but his failure to preserve the American Colonies along with Glasgow's lucrative tobacco trade, saw this favoured plinth given to someone else. Statues of Queen Victoria, Robert Burns and, the famous Scottish inventor, James Watt, surround Sir Walter, besides hundreds of pigeons.