City Center, Glasgow

At the heart of the Victorian city center stands the flower-bedecked George Square where twelve statues of famous men and women survey the bustling scene. They include Robert Burns, Scott (on the Doric column at the center) and James Watt, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Thomas Campbell, William Gladstone, Sir John Moore and Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), prime minister and rector of the university.

A group of mid-19th C warehouses to the south of City Chambers were given a face-lift in 1990 by the architects Page and Park. The Italian Centre with its open inner courtyard, cafe, restaurant and 10 designer boutiques can offer Glaswegians continental-style shopping.

Hutcheson's Hall, a building designed in 1802 by David Hamilton hosts musical events such as lunchtime recitals, clarsach concerts, visiting choirs and Christmas music. It is the headquarters of the National Trust for Scotland.

High Street, Saltmarket, Gallowgate and Trongate all meet at Glasgow Cross, a busy road junction. The only evidence remaining of the square's original function as the heart of the old inner city is the 111ft/34m high Tolbooth Steeple (17th century). The Mercat Cross was erected in 1929.

The huge Barras Street Market begins a few hundred yards further east. At the weekends as many as 1,000 traders congregate here to sell food, antiques, bric-à-brac, household goods and clothing. With luck it is possible to pick up a designer outfit at a very reasonable price.

To the west of George Square and a few yards from the corner of Queen St and Ingram St stand the Royal Exchange Buildings by David Hamilton (1832) identifiable by their Corinthian columns. The Stirling Library has been housed here since 1950.

Just a short distance to the north of the Stirling Library, Glasgow's Stock Exchange is housed in a Venetian Gothic edifice designed by William Burdett and built between 1875 and 1877 on the corner of Nelson Mandela Place and Buchanan Street.

The elegant, glass-roofed Prince's Square shopping arcade runs to the south of Buchanan Street's pedestrianized zone. Continue through Argyle Arcade, the address of Sloan's, Glasgow's oldest restaurant (19th century), towards Howard Street and passing the stylish shop windows beneath the futuristic glass roof of the vast St Enoch Shopping Center.

Mackintosh's art academy (1876) is essential viewing for lovers of fine architecture. Completed in 1909, this Art Nouveau building confirmed the 28-year-old designer's reputation not just as a master of the exterior - while the grand west facade is dominated by three 65ft/20m high oriel windows, the smaller windows on the east front are reminiscent of Scottish castles - but also as a superb interior designer. Of special interest are the principal's room, one of the first of Mackintosh's "White Rooms", the so-called Mackintosh Room for meetings of the Academy of Art and the unique Library with gallery.

To the northwest of the Glasgow School of Art at 147 Buccleuch Street, the Victorian Tenement House offers an insight into how the middle classes lived in the early part of the 20th C.

In 1904 Frank Matcham equipped the King's Theatre in Bath Street with a splendid auditorium. It is used mainly for plays, light entertainment, and musicals.

The Mitchell Library is housed in a striking building in North Street (1874). It is Europe's largest reference library with over 1.3 million books including the world's most comprehensive collection of works by Robert Burns.

During the late 1980s Page and Park redesigned the memorial to David Livingstone which adorns the concourse.

Glasgow's largest cemetery on Fir Park Hill was laid out in the 18th C. In most cases, the grand tombstones recall the lives of wealthy merchants who made their fortune during Glasgow's heyday in the last C. A monument erected on a Doric column (1825) commemorates the reformer John Knox.

Opened in 1992, the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art examines the world religions, their rites and how their doctrines deal with the issues of life and death. Exhibits range from Egyptian mummies, Hindu statues of Shiva and African fetishes to Salvador Dali's "Christ of Saint John of the Cross" (1951). A Zen Buddhist garden flourishes in the courtyard.

Facing the Museum of Religious Life and Art stands Provand's Lordship, Glasgow's oldest house, a three-story building with a stepped gable. It was built ca. 1471 for the head of St Nicholas Hospital. James II and James IV are said to have stayed there and Mary Stuart spent the winter of 1566 in the house while she visited her sick husband Lord Darnley who was murdered soon after. The Curate's Room (16th century) and a fine collection of furniture (17th/18th century) are the most interesting exhibits in the museum.