Glasgow with its satellite towns, forms the huge industrial heart of the Lowlands. It grew from being a pleasant burgh in pretty countryside into a great city, starting first in the 17th century as a major seaport to which sugar and tobacco were imported from America, then completing its development in the last 150 years with the establishment of steelwork and large docks and shipyards along the river Clyde. Today Glasgow is Scotland's largest city, and is the third largest in population in the British Isles, after London and Birmingham.

Glasgow with its fine buildings, excellent shopping, beautiful parks, museum and art galleries attracts thousands of visitors each year from every corner of the globe.

The city is an ideal centre. There is plenty to see and do and it is within each reach of many other holiday spots.

Glasgow itself stands as a monument to Victorian architects yet modern day planners have gently woven a 20th-century heart into this busy bustling friendly metropolis.

Glasgow has the only complete medieval cathedral on the Scottish mainland. It dates from the 12th century and the 13th century and the spire and the nave were added 200 years later. The site has been a holy place since the 6th-century church was built by St Mungo.