Chapter 7 - Aberdeen Part I

Chapter 7 – Aberdeen Part I

Note: We learned last night that Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle on September 8, 2022, just after 6:30 in the evening (1:30 pm CST). We are in Aberdeen just 43 miles from Balmoral Castle. We have heard that she may be taken to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh with a procession down the Royal Mile and a service at St. Giles Cathedral before being taken to London. Edinburgh Castle is closed to the public. We are waiting on details. Interesting to be here during this historic time.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

The ScotRail train to Aberdeen was about a four-hour trip. The Aberdeen Station is connected to Union Square, a wonderful indoor mall. We had lunch at Brassiere Valerie in the mall. Our Airbnb apartment was just across the street. We met our host Gil (pronounced Jill) and she showed us about the place. Very nice living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. There is a Local Sainsbury grocery store just downstairs. We were tired and had crackers, cheese, and soup for dinner in the apartment.

Thursday, September 1, 2022

We are finding that most breakfast places here don’t open until about 9:00 AM or later. So, we went across the street to Union Square and walked around a bit before eating at Patisserie Valerie.

Sarah walked up to Union Street – and we do mean up! More stairs! Aberdeen is a port city in northeast Scotland, where the Dee and Don rivers meet the North Sea. It’s also known as the “Granite City” for its many grey-stone buildings. Sarah walked down to the beach and walked along the esplanade (Photo 7 - 1). She then walked to the little fishing

village of Footdee (pronounced Fittie). There’s been a settlement here as far back as medieval times with the first recorded reference in 1398. It’s a very picturesque village now for local residents (Photo 7 - 2).

Scotland is known as a very “green” country in terms of sustainability and renewable energy. In 2020, 97% of their electricity was from renewable energy (contrast that to the US which was about 20% at the same time). We’ve seen wind farms both on land and at sea (Photo 7 - 3).

On her way back to our apartment, Sarah stopped off at Books and Beans, a small used bookstore that also has a café. The tables are interspersed with the books (Photo 7 - 4). She had a scone with clotted cream and jam along with a pot of tea.

For dinner, we walked about a mile-and-a-half to The Silver Darling seafood restaurant, right at the Port entrance. Sarah had scallops and charred broccoli; Bruce had crab soup and cod baked in a bacon wrap with mashed potatoes and greens. We got a cab for the trip back. It turned out our cab driver

(who had a very pronounced Scottish accent) is a country music fan. He loves Dolly Parton and even serenaded us with a few lines of “Jolene”.

Friday, September 2

Bruce went back to Patisserie Valerie for breakfast while Sarah tackled learning the cooktop (or hob) to fix some scrambled eggs in the apartment. Bruce dealt with schoolwork in the morning. Sarah walked around town stopping into the Art Academy (Photo 7 - 5) and walking by the Library and His

Majesty’s Theater.

We both walked around the Town Centre in the afternoon. One of the highlights was Marischal College. Marischal College was founded in 1593 as Aberdeen’s second university. King’s College was founded in 1495. The two merged in 1860 to form the modern University of Aberdeen. Medicine and Law were taught at Marischal and Arts and Divinity at King’s College. Marischal College is the second largest granite building in the world (Photo 7 - 6).

We had been planning on getting the next Chapter of our blog out today at the latest but kept encountering software glitches.

We had dinner at Bistro Verde, a local seafood restaurant. Sarah had monkfish with noodles and teriyaki vegetables. Bruce had skink (a soup with smoked haddock, potatoes, and leeks in a rich cream) and a prawn-crab Caesar salad. It was a tiny little place with very funky décor but probably our favorite so far in terms of food in Aberdeen (Photo 7 - 7).

Saturday, September 3, 2022

It was a slow morning. We’ve had rain pretty much every day since we’ve arrived in Aberdeen. We prepared breakfast in our apartment. We worked on the Travel Diaries Web site and continued to have several technical problems. It looked good in the preview screen but was completely wrong when it was “published.” Sarah sent an email to technical support.

Sarah went to the theater for a matinee of “Dream Girls” at His Majesty’s Theatre, a beautiful granite building built in 1906. It was quite ornate inside and out (Photo 7 - 8).

We had dinner at All Bar One right in front of Marischal College. Sarah scheduled a day tour for us with Duncan’s tours for Tuesday to see some of the many castles around Aberdeen.

Sunday, September 4, 2022

We had breakfast again in the apartment and decided to have just a really lazy day. It rained off and on. We stayed in until mid-afternoon and then walked up to Maggie’s near Bar One. It’s described as a soul food restaurant with barbeque. We wouldn’t really compare it to barbeque in the US although it wasn’t too bad.

Monday, September 5, 2022

We had breakfast at Patisserie Valerie again. Our host, Gil, stopped by to meet a workman and clean our apartment. She’s been a wealth of information.

We wanted to try the bus and go up to Old Town Aberdeen, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, and the botanical gardens. Unfortunately, we missed our stop and suddenly realized we were several miles outside of Aberdeen heading to who knows where!?! You may remember our Whitstable experience. Apparently, it takes at least twice for us to figure out the buses. We got off at Ellon and caught a bus returning to Aberdeen. We had only paid for a city ticket but both bus drivers (while probably laughing at us inside) were very kind and helpful and let us ride with no additional fare. Ellon looked like an interesting little village.

After recovering from our bus adventure, we stopped in and had an early dinner at Cosmo. Cosmo is basically an international buffet with Continental, Italian, Asian, Japanese, and Indian food.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

We had breakfast in the apartment and got ready for our tour with Duncan. Unfortunately, he had overbooked, and we had to move it to Thursday. We walked around the area for about an hour. It was a very foggy day which gave us some great pictures of the buildings, statues, and cemeteries of Aberdeen (Photo 7 - 9).

Later in the day Sarah walked about a mile to Duthie Park overlooking the River Dee and adjacent to a lovely residential area called Polmuir Gardens. The highlight of Duthie Park is the David Welch Winter Gardens. It is a series of interconnected green houses with beautiful gardens and a huge variety of plants from tropical to desert. It is laid out in a rectangle enclosing another beautiful garden in the center. Sarah took too many pictures to share in the blog but here are a couple (Photo 7 – 10 and 7 - 11). It started raining on her way back to the apartment. Thank goodness she had her raingear in her backpack.

It cleared a little in the afternoon. Bruce worked on school

and took a nap. Sarah walked over to Union Square and went to Cineworld and saw the movie “Elvis”. It’s been well over 2 ½ years since she’d been in a movie theater. We had some leftovers from Maggie’s so just fixed dinner in the apartment.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

It was pouring rain when we got up. We went to Patisserie Valerie for breakfast and came back to the apartment to wash clothes and work on our next Chapter for our blog.

It cleared up late morning and we caught the bus to Old Town Aberdeen (second attempt). This time it worked out and we spent a couple of hours walking the cobblestone

streets of Old Town (Photo 7 - 12), seeing the University (Photo 7 - 13), and visiting the Cruickshank Botanic Gardens (Photo 7 - 14). We also visited St. Machar Cathedral (Photo 7 - 15). According to legend, St. Machar founded a site of worship here around 580 A.D.

Coming back by bus, we got off on Union Street and walked to the Maritime Museum before returning to our apartment. We had reservations at Moonfish Café. Sarah had prawn on toast and lamb for dinner. Bruce had grilled asparagus as an appetizer and grilled halibut as his entrée. Food, service, and atmosphere were great!

We are once again scheduled to go out with Duncan

tomorrow to see some of the area and sites around Aberdeen.