A Day Ashore in Aberdeen
Off the ship in Aberdeen’s South Harbour and into the Granite City: Fittie and the dolphins at the harbour mouth, the Maritime Museum, Marischal College, the Art Gallery and Old Aberdeen.
Words by Hidden Scotland
Aberdeen’s cruise season runs from spring to September, and ships tie up alongside in the new South Harbour. First Aberdeen’s CS1 cruise shuttle runs between the port and the city centre, and its ticket is good on First buses for the rest of the day. Welcome to Aberdeenshire volunteers meet the ships.
The city is built of granite, which sparkles when the sun is out, and its centre, the harbour and the beach are all close together.
01 · Aberdeen harbour
Footdee
Footdee, which everyone in Aberdeen calls Fittie, is a small fishing village at the mouth of the harbour, with water on three sides. Its cottages, built in the 19th century for the fishing families, are laid out in squares facing inwards, their backs to the sea, with a jumble of sheds and little gardens in between. It is still a lived-in village, so walk quietly.
02 · Aberdeen harbour
Torry Battery
Across the harbour mouth, the granite walls of Torry Battery, finished in 1860 to guard the harbour, look out over the North Sea. The harbour mouth below is one of the best places in Britain to see bottlenose dolphins, often very close to the rocks, and Greyhope Bay’s café in the ruins has big windows onto the sea.
03 · Shiprow
Aberdeen Maritime Museum
Above the harbour on the old street of Shiprow, the Maritime Museum tells the story of Aberdeen and the sea, in a merchant’s house of the 1500s, an old church and a glass building between them. Three thousand ships were built in Aberdeen, and the museum is full of their models. It is free.
04 · Broad Street
Marischal College
On Broad Street, a wall of pale grey granite rises in a forest of Gothic pinnacles, so intricate it looks carved from lace. Marischal College is the second largest granite building in the world and the great symbol of the Granite City, founded as a university in 1593.
05 · Schoolhill
Aberdeen Art Gallery
On Schoolhill, behind a pillared front, Aberdeen Art Gallery holds one of the finest art collections in Scotland, spanning seven hundred years, and it is free to walk in. The building was transformed between 2015 and 2019, with rooms full of light.
06 · Old Aberdeen
Old Aberdeen and St Machar’s
Two miles north of the centre, Old Aberdeen was once a town of its own, of bishops and scholars, and its cobbled streets still feel a world apart. The High Street leads past King’s College, founded in 1495, to St Machar’s Cathedral, its two granite spires rising above the River Don.
07 · Near Stonehaven
Dunnottar Castle
South of the city, the ruins of Dunnottar cover a great flat-topped rock standing out of the sea, joined to the mainland by a narrow neck of land. Aberdeen to Stonehaven and Dunnottar goes by train and the cliff path, so leave plenty of time to get back to the ship.
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