Tour with an Outlander flavour

Just as Game Of Thrones generated a huge dividend for Northern Ireland’s tourism industry, Outlander has been a boon to Scotland’s.

Countless trips have been booked here thanks to the Starz TV hit adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s historical romance novels.

Scottish castles, palaces, towns and villages have reported spikes in overseas visitor numbers after their on-screen appearances.

And a similar trend is anticipated following the release of Outlander’s eighth and final season on March 6, when viewers can rekindle their affection/obsession with the escapades of Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan).

Although Scotland’s stunning countryside backdrops much of the show, the nation’s cities are also a favourite with production crews, often doubling as non-Scottish locations.

“This was Boston in Outlander,” says Glasgow guide Gillian Morrison, as she leads us through Kelvingrove Park, an attractive 34ha retreat in the city’s West End. In the third season of Outlander, Claire was taking a walk in a Boston park with her daughter, Brianna, when she saw a busking bagpiper that reminded her of Jamie and Scotland. That particular scene was filmed on the Prince of Wales Bridge over the River Kelvin, a tributary of the Clyde that courses through Glasgow.

Although Gillian’s tour is primarily focused on food and drink — we stop off at a handful of West End establishments to sample Scottish snacks, staples and tipples — it’s great to hear snippets of Glaswegian history while stretching our legs and walking off some kilojoules.

As grey squirrels dart by our feet, we gaze at the gorgeous architecture soaring in and around the park, including the red sandstone Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, which has one of the best free-to-view art collections in Britain (including pieces by Salvador Dali, Vincent van Gogh and Charles Rennie Mackintosh).

The genius of Glasgow-born Mackintosh — one of Scotland’s most revered designers — is also showcased at another admission-free cultural draw, the Hunterian, Scotland’s oldest public museum. With more than a million eclectic items, that’s on the main campus of the University of Glasgow flanking Kelvingrove Park. We don’t have time to visit any of these museums on this tour but they’re certainly worth adding to your Glasgow itinerary.

We do, however, enjoy an amble around the university campus with Gillian, a geography graduate here. Billed as the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world — it was established in 1451 — it swapped central Glasgow for the West End in the 1870s, where the fabulous complex of Gothic revival buildings was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a Victorian architect with landmarks across the British Empire.

The university’s signature tower — visible from Kelvingrove Park — is named after him. He died before it was finished but his son John, who continued the architectural dynasty, completed this 85m-high tower in 1891.

This campus looks not unlike Hogwarts from Harry Potter or the famous colleges of Oxford and Cambridge but in seasons three and four of Outlander, it was Harvard. Viewers may recognise the magnificent cloisters that connect the university’s lawned east and west quadrangles.

These ribbed archways also graced another time-skipping production, Cloud Atlas, a 2012 sci-fi movie based on David Mitchell’s novel and with a running time of almost three hours.

Gillian’s West End Wander lasts four hours, with a leisurely pace that also manages to cram a huge amount in. The sightseeing, strolling and storytelling is accompanied by gins and whisky from the Highlands and Islands, Scottish cheeses and shortbread, cullen skink (a seafood chowder), haggis, neeps and tatties (Scotland’s national dish) and a few other tantalising surprises (notably a spiced twist on a traditional Scotch egg).

This tour is a nice way to savour one of the most inspiring parts of Scotland’s largest city, which, incidentally, you’ll see on screen again when it stages the 2026 Commonwealth Games (July 23 to August 2).

+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Visit Scotland. which has not influenced this story, or read it before publication. fact file + West End food and drink group tours run most days, priced from £75 ($149). For times, availability and bookings, see glasgowfoodndrinktour.co.uk + For more information on visiting Glasgow, see visitglasgow.com + To help plan a trip to Scotland, see visitscotland.com