Things to do in Aberdeenshire & Moray
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Foyer
A light, airy space filled with blond wood and bold colours, Foyer is an art gallery as well as a restaurant and is run by a charity that works against youth homelessness and unemployment. The seasonal menu is a fusion of Scottish, Mediterranean and Asian influences, with lots of good vegetarian (and gluten- or dairy-free) options. A light lunch menu is available from 11am to 4pm.
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Howie's
A chic bistro dishing up great-value 'modern Scottish' cuisine accompanied by very reasonably priced house wine. Two-/three-course dinner £18/20.
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Marischal College & Museum
Across Broad St from Provost Skene's House is Marischal College, founded in 1593 by the 5th Earl Marischal, and merged with King's College (founded 1495) in 1860 to create the modern University of Aberdeen. The huge and impressive facade in Perpendicular Gothic style – unusual in having such elaborate masonry hewn from notoriously hard-to-work granite – dates from 1906 and is the world's second-largest granite structure (after L'Escorial near Madrid). Recently the building was being converted into Aberdeen City Council's new headquarters.
Founded in 1786, the Marischal Museum houses a fascinating collection of material donated by graduates and friends of the university…
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Balmoral Castle
Eight miles west of Ballater lies Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s Highland holiday home, screened from the road by a thick curtain of trees. Built for Queen Victoria in 1855 as a private residence for the royal family, it kicked off the revival of the Scottish Baronial style of architecture that characterises so many of Scotland’s 19th-century country houses.
The admission fee includes an interesting and well thought-out audioguide, but the tour is very much an outdoor one through garden and grounds; as for the castle itself, only the ballroom, which displays a collection of Landseer paintings and royal silver, is open to the public. Don’t expect to see the Queen’s priva…
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Aberdeen Art Gallery
Behind the grand facade of Aberdeen Art Gallery is a cool, marble-lined space exhibiting the work of contemporary Scottish and English painters, such as Gwen Hardie, Stephen Conroy, Trevor Sutton and Tim Ollivier. There are also several landscapes by Joan Eardley, who lived in a cottage on the cliffs near Stonehaven in the 1950s and '60s and painted tempestuous oils of the North Sea and poignant portraits of slum children. Among the Pre-Raphaelite works upstairs, look out for the paintings of Aberdeen artist William Dyce (1806–64), ranging from religious works to rural scenes.
Downstairs is a large, empty, circular white room, with fish-scaled balustrades evoking the bri…
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Findhorn Foundation
Hippies old and new should check out the Findhorn Foundation, an international spiritual community founded in 1962. There’s a small permanent population of around 150, but the community receives thousands of visitors each year. With no formal creed, the community is dedicated to cooperation with nature, ‘dealing with work, relationships and our environment in new and more fulfilling ways’, and fostering ‘a deeper sense of the sacred in everyday life’. Projects include an eco-village, a biological sewage-treatment plant and a wind-powered generator. Guided tours (£5) start from the visitor centre at 2pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from April to November, and …
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Aberdeen Beach
Aberdeen Beach is 800m east of the city centre. A spectacular 2-mile sweep of clean, golden sand stretching between the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don. At one time Aberdeen Beach was a good, old-fashioned British seaside resort, but the availability of cheap package holidays has lured Scottish holidaymakers away from its somewhat chilly delights. On a warm summer's day, though, it's still an excellent beach.
You can get away from the fun fair atmosphere by walking north towards the more secluded part of the beach. There is a bird-watching hide on the south bank of the River Don, between the beach and King St, which leads back south towards Old Aberdeen.
Buses 14 and 15 (…
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Scottish Lighthouse Museum
The excellent Scottish Lighthouse Museum provides a fascinating insight into the network of lights that have safeguarded the Scottish coast for over 100 years, and the men and women who built and maintained them (plus a sobering fact – that all the world’s lighthouses are to be decommissioned by 1 January 2080). A guided tour takes you to the top of the old Kinnaird Head lighthouse, built on top of a converted 16th-century castle; the engineering is so precise that the 4.5-ton light assembly can be rotated by pushing with a single finger. The anemometer here measured the strongest wind speed ever recorded in the UK, with a gust of 123 knots (142mph) on 13 February 1989.…
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Aberdeen Maritime Museum
Overlooking the nautical bustle of the harbour is the Maritime Museum. Centred on a three-storey replica of a North Sea oil production platform, its exhibits explain all you ever wanted to know about the petroleum industry. Other galleries, some situated in Provost Ross's House, the oldest building in the city and part of museum, cover the shipbuilding, whaling and fishing industries. Sleek and speedy Aberdeen clippers were a 19th-century shipyard speciality, used by British merchants for the importation of tea, wool and exotic goods (opium, for instance) to Britain, and, on the return journey, the transportation of emigrants to Australia.
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Provost Skene's House
Surrounded by concrete and glass office blocks in what was once the worst slum in Aberdeen is Provost Skene's House, a late-medieval turreted town house occupied in the 17th century by the provost (the Scottish equivalent of a mayor) Sir George Skene. It was also occupied for six weeks by the Duke of Cumberland on his way to Culloden in 1746. The tempera-painted ceiling with its religious symbolism, dating from 1622, is unusual for having survived the depredations of the Reformation. It's a period gem featuring earnest-looking angels, soldiers and St Peter with crowing cockerels.
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Castle Fraser
The impressive 16th- to 17th-century Castle Fraser is the ancestral home of the Fraser family. The largely Victorian interior includes the great hall (with a hidden opening where the laird could eavesdrop on his guests), the library, various bedrooms and an ancient kitchen, plus a secret room for storing valuables; Fraser family relics on display include needlework hangings and a 19th-century artificial leg. The 'Woodland Secrets' area in the castle grounds is designed as an adventure playground for kids.
The castle is 16 miles west of Aberdeen and 3 miles south of Kemnay. Buses from Aberdeen to Alford stop at Kemnay.
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Union Street
Union Street, the main shopping street, runs along the crest of this ridge between Holburn Junction in the west and Castlegate in the east. It's the city's main thoroughfare, lined with solid, Victorian granite buildings. The oldest area is Castlegate, at the eastern end, where the castle once stood. When it was captured from the English for Robert the Bruce, the password used by the townspeople was 'Bon Accord', which is now the city's motto.
On the northern side of Union St is St Nicholas Church.
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Rendezvous@Nargile
A stylish West End venue specialising in Turkish cuisine. There are tasty spreads of mezes – shakshuka (a blend of roast peppers, tomatoes, aubergines and chilli), djadjik (yoghurt with garlic and cucumber) and sigara boregi (cheese pastries), for example – followed by delicious, melt-in-the-mouth kebabs and marinated meats, and vegetarian dishes such as mantar guvec (casserole of button mushrooms in creamy sauce with a cheese-and-couscous crust).
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Gordon Highlanders Museum
The excellent Gordon Highlanders Museum records the history of one of the British Army's most famous fighting units, described by Winston Churchill as 'the finest regiment in the world'. Originally raised in the northeast of Scotland by the 4th Duke of Gordon in 1794, the regiment was amalgamated with the Seaforths and Camerons to form the Highlanders regiment in 1994. The museum is about a mile west of the western end of Union St – take bus 14 or 15 from Union St.
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St Machar's Cathedral
The 15th-century St Machar's Cathedral, with its massive twin towers, is a rare example of a fortified cathedral. According to legend, St Machar was ordered to establish a church where the river takes the shape of a bishop's crook, which it does just here. The cathedral is best known for its impressive heraldic ceiling, dating from 1520, which has 48 shields of kings, nobles, archbishops and bishops. Sunday services are held at 11am and 6pm.
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Sand Dollar Café
A cut above your usual seaside cafe – on sunny days you can sit at the wooden tables outside and share a bottle of chilled white wine, and there's a tempting menu that includes pancakes with maple syrup, homemade burgers and chocolate brownie with Orkney ice cream. An evening bistro menu (mains £11 to £20, served from 6pm Thursday to Saturday) offers steak and seafood dishes. The cafe is on the esplanade, 800m northeast of the city centre.
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Silver Darling
The Silver Darling (an old Scottish nickname for herring) is housed in a former Customs office, with picture windows overlooking the sea at the entrance to Aberdeen harbour. Here you can enjoy fresh Scottish seafood prepared by a top French chef while you watch the porpoises playing in the harbour mouth. The lunch menu offers good-value gourmet delights, such as pan-fried turbot with chorizo and herb croquette; bookings are recommended.
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Musa Art Cafe
The bright paintings on the walls match the vibrant furnishings and smart gastronomic creations at this great cafe-restaurant, set in a former church that was later used to store bananas. As well as a menu that focuses on quality local produce cooked in a quirky way – think haggis-and-coriander spring rolls with apricot chutney – there are Brewdog beers from Fraserburgh, and interesting music, sometimes live.
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Haddo House
Designed in Georgian style by William Adam in 1732, Haddo House is best described as a classic English stately home transplanted to Scotland. Home to the Gordon family, it has sumptuous Victorian interiors with wood-panelled walls, Persian rug–scattered floors and a wealth of period antiques. The beautiful grounds and terraced gardens are open all year (9am to dusk).
Haddo is 19 miles north of Aberdeen, near Ellon. Buses run hourly Monday to Saturday from Aberdeen to Tarves/Methlick, stopping at the end of the Haddo House driveway; it's a mile-long walk from bus stop to house.
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Blue Lamp
A long-standing feature of the Aberdeen pub scene, the Blue Lamp is a favourite student hang-out – a dark and slightly dingy drinking den with beer, good craic (lively conversation) and a jukebox selection that has barely changed since Elvis died. There are regular sessions of live jazz, folk and acoustic music. The pub is 150m north of the city centre, along Broad St.
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Café 52
This little haven of laid-back industrial chic – a high, narrow space lined with bare stonework, rough plaster and exposed ventilation ducts – serves some of the finest and most inventive cuisine in the northeast. Try starters such as wild game and garlic meatloaf with spiced swede chutney, or mains like roast- cumin-and-honey pork loin with baked black pudding.
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Huntly Castle
Castle St (beside the Huntly Hotel) runs north from the town square to an arched gateway and tree-lined avenue that leads to 16th-century Huntly Castle, the former stronghold of the Gordons on the banks of the River Deveron. Over the main door is a superb carving that includes the royal arms and the figures of Christ and St Michael.
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Corgarff Castle
In the wild upper reaches of Strathdon, near the A939 from Corgarff to Tomintoul, is the impressive fortress of Corgarff Castle. The tower house dates from the 16th century, but the star-shaped defensive curtain wall was added in 1748 when the castle was converted to a military barracks in the wake of the Jacobite rebellion.
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Codona’s Amusement Park
The Esplanade sports several traditional seaside attractions, including Codona’s Amusement Park, complete with stomach-churning waltzers, dodgems, a roller coaster, log flume and haunted house. The adjacent Sunset Boulevard is the indoor alternative, with tenpin bowling, dodgems, arcade games and pool tables.
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Moonfish Café
The menu of this funky little eatery tucked away on a back street concentrates on good value French bistro fare (two-course lunch £10) such as classic French onion soup, moules-frites (mussels with fries) with saffron and Pernod cream sauce, and crisp sea bass fillet with chorizo, boudin noir (blood sausage) and salsa verde.
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