Attractions

From the latest designer fashions to traditional Scottish crafts, Aberdeen's shops will have something in store for you.

Aberdeen's famous 'Granite Mile' - Union Street - is the gateway to over 800 shops, restaurants and bars. The city centre boasts three large indoor shopping malls packed with all the well known high street names, the award winning Bon Accord Centre, which is fronted by the smaller but equally interesting St Nicholas Centre, and the recently refurbished Trinity Centre. There are also three smaller specialist centres - the stunning Academy Centre with its Italian style central Piazza, the Galleria Centre in the West-end and the indoor Market Hall.

In the Greater Aberdeen area there are specialty stores for fine art, jewellery, pottery and ceramics, traditional knitwear, and weaving.

Thirty minutes drive from Aberdeen City centre, Royal Deeside is a treasure trove of galleries, craft shops and exclusive outlets many of them with Royal Warrants.

Each December, before Christmas Aberdeen hosts craft, antiques and collectors' fairs.

Entertainment
Aberdeen is the entertainment, leisure and cultural centre of North-east Scotland.

With its sparkling granite buildings, Aberdeen has one of Scotland’s most enchanting skylines, while the old town has a magical air of time gone by.
A fantastic range of first class restaurants and a vibrant nightlife combined with a thriving cultural calendar and shops galore, all help make Scotland’s third largest city well worth the trip.

To round off a day in Aberdeen and Grampian, the range of nightlife is perhaps surprisingly extensive. Visit during a festival or highland gathering in particular and the choice of evening entertainment is particularly good - but whatever the time of year there is much to entertain young and old alike. Great nightclubs and cinemas are to be found in Aberdeen, as well as an acclaimed theatre, His Majesty’s Theatre. Great entertainment programmes can also be found at

The Lemon Tree  
www.lemontree.org

The Music Hall    
www.aberdeencity.gov.uk

Aberdeen is also very much on the touring concert circuit although the area's musical treats don’t just end there. Aberdeen and Grampian is home to a number of talented musicians and in many communities, towns and villages you will find informal sessions and ceilidhs that fill the evening air with music, song and laughter.

A superb resource is www.thisisaberdeen.co.uk

Art and culture

Aberdeen International Youth Festival

The International Youth Festival is widely recognised as one of Aberdeen's most prestigious cultural events, bringing together around 1000 young people from the world's finest youth orchestras

With its roots in the 1960s, the festival originally moved around Europe before settling in Aberdeen in 1982. Since then, its popularity has rocketed.

Apart from fulfilling the founder's wish of including a greater variety of cultures, it now incorporates two summer schools for individual musicians and dancers, a fine-arts programme and a multi-arts project involving local young disabled people.

Aberdeen Art Gallery

Opened in 1885 and designed by local architect Alexander Marshall McKenzie, the popular Aberdeen Art Gallery has impressive collections of modern art, as well as work by the Impressionists and much more.

In addition to 18th-century portraits by Raeburn, Hogarth, Ramsay and Reynolds and powerful 20th-century works by Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Francis Bacon, the gallery also has paintings by Monet, Pissaro, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard, while representatives of the Glasgow Boys include Sir John Lavery's The Tennis Party and Sir James Guthrie's To Pastures New. It also supports new and emerging artists in its enterprising programme of special exhibitions throughout the year, with new acquisitions occasionally displayed in the imposing Centre Court, with its rose and grey granite columns.

The gallery is one of four operated by Aberdeen City Council, the others being the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, overlooking the harbour, Provost Skene's House (a 16th-century town house with a 17th-century suite of rooms inside) and the Tolbooth (one of the best preserved 17th-century Scottish gaols).

Touring

The whole Grampian and North east of Scotland region is a great base for a whole variety of superb and contrasting day trips.

Touring Aberdeen and Grampian  – really something for everyone – and we can provide excellent picnic and packed lunches so that you can enjoy the whole day at a leisurely pace, stopping just where you choose. Here are some of our suggested highlights:-

Self drive
The Four Great Trails:
Malt Whisky
Castle
(or mix castles and Whisky!)
Victorian Heritage
Grampian Coastal

A day to Cullen and Portsoy and some dolphin watching and superb beach walking.

A day trip over the Lecht to Royal Deeside, Ballater and Balmoral Castle, returning via Banchory.

A day trip to Perth, via Royal Deeside, Glenshee and Blairgowrie – with an optional return via Dundee and along the coastal route.

A ‘Day in the Park’ – visit Boat of Garten, Aviemore and Grantown on Spey, at the epicentre of Cairngorm National Park.

A day trip to Inverness and Loch Ness.

A day trip along the Coastal Route to Dundee, the city of Discovery, returning perhaps via the little Red Town of Kirriemuir, home of Peter Pan at the foot of the Angus Glens.

Guided
Caledonian Heritage Tours – www.caledonian-heritage-tours.co.uk       
An Award Winning Tour Company who run excellent tours from Aberdeen to Whisky Trail, Castle Trail, Royal Deeside, etc

Other

It would be hard to feature the highlights of Aberdeen without mentioning the famous Scottish premier league Football Club Aberdeen FC.

Affectionately known as the ‘Dons’, their home is Pittodrie stadium, close to the city centre. In 1978, Pittodrie Stadium became the first all-seated, all-covered football ground in the UK. Those were the days of the long wooden bench seating, which dramatically increased your odds of a broken leg if wild celebrations following a goal.

Nowadays, individual seats are in place, so at least comfort and safety are better. Away fans are housed in the South Stand, with size of allocation and prices of entry dependent on opposition. Celtic and Rangers get a bigger section than the other teams, but they usually fill it (if they are winning).

It may not be as modern as Ibrox, Parkhead or Hampden Park, but there is something special about this stadium. The atmosphere is simply exceptional, especially when the capacity of 21,634 is nearly reached.

Away fans are normally allocated seating in the South Stand. Refreshments are decently priced, and the toilet facilities are some of the best, especially for women.

There is a family section at the Merkland Road end, where child away fans can be accommodated.