Glasgow: Europe’s Hot yet Laid-Back Secret – Part 1
Glasgow: Fashionista Heaven
Glasgow, Scotland imbues the culture and mystique of old-world Europe with a hip and unpretentious panache and serves the concoction against a backdrop of rustic and gold sandstone buildings and green space (translation: 70 city-parks, golf, and mountainside views) on an uptown happy-hour budget.
The people are friendly, unassuming and wickedly funny. And while exploring the city in the brisk March air, conversations with friends and some interesting natives, offer up the inside-scoop on Glaswegians, speakeasies, and hot, in-the-moment music and fashion scenes that seem to be a European secret.
The cosmopolitan’s official badges of honor include winning last year’s bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games and a designation as “European City of Culture” by the European Union in 1990. But on the streets, in the pubs, and in international headlines, it is Glasgow’s music scene – launching bands like Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol – and fashion districts – ranking 2nd only to London in the U.K. – that steal the spotlight.
And since it continues to be less expensive than neighbors Edinburgh, Dublin, and London, visiting Europe this summer is doable, even with an anemic dollar.
First settled in 6th century AD, Glasgow has reinvented itself more times than Madonna. America’s independence phased out the city’s tobacco trade and signaled a more than century-long industrial revolution prospering in textiles, cotton, steel and shipbuilding – reaching its economic zenith in 1900.
Today’s Glasgow has dusted off its industrial image and Victorian architecture and is under-going another transformation – this time as the U.K.’s down-to-earth yet urbane star.
