Scotland road trip Aberdeen to Edinburgh - Part 2

Last week in - Part 1 - I talk about doing an Aberdeen city walking tour and shopping in Aberdeen.

River Dee near Duthie Park
Carrying on from last week and where to get healthy vegetarian food - Pret-a-Manger do great take-outs -  see their menu - here. There is a big one in Union Street and a smaller one in the Bon Accord Centre.

Walking along the old railway line
Marks and Spencer also do healthy, tasty take-out salads and meals. Plus you can pick up a great bottle of wine to go with. Read more - here. Find Markies in St Nicholas Shopping Centre.

What you absolutely have to do is visit a pub and try one of the local ales. There are microbreweries all over the UK and I would argue that the UK produces some of the best beers. Visit - CAMRA - to find out if there are any beer festivals when you are visiting. Some pubs can be a bit skanky and full of bar flies but I kind of like seeing life from all angles and hey, a great beer is a great beer, quirky company makes having it that much more interesting.

Greenie and Swedish friend
The Tourism office also gave us a printout for a walk which starts at Duthie Park and runs along the River Dee. Read about it - here. Duthie Park has a free indoor garden that grows just about everything.    We intended to
do that walk the next day. But we had a slow start and decided to rather walk along the
- old railway line - from Duthie Park in Aberdeen to Cults which is about 6.5 kilometers. Fitter people can walk all the way to Peterculter [pronounced Peter Cooter], add another 6 kilometers. The walk allows you to see the outskirts of Aberdeen and villages like Cults or Peterculter, but also to see trees, birds, farms and natural scenery of the area.

Stonehaven
At Cults we had lunch and then we walked back in the drizzle. I have to mention that Aberdeen is not a sunshine destination. Even when the mercury is reaching 27'C in Glasgow, Aberdeen is significantly cooler, and often cloudy. This has to do with a coastal fog that occurs in eastern Scotland known as The Haar. In essence the east coast of Scotland has it's own little micro climate. Read more - here.

The upside of this is that the east coast has less of a problem with midges. Coming from Africa where we have deadly mosquitoes and insects, I scoffed when the Scots moaned about midges. Until one hot day I got eaten alive and had a bad reaction to them. Read more - here

Dunnotter Castle

We hired a car from here on and the next full day we drove the coastal route taking in old fishing villages such as Stonehaven, Montrose and Arbroath, finally finishing in the fourth largest city - Dundee. Whether you drive north or south, you encounter these picturesque little villages, castles, ruins, harbours with fishing boats and rolling green hills as far as the eye can see. We stopped at - Dunnottar Castle - and walked along the cliffs. It's a full day out. Read more about the area - Coastal Route. Golf lovers might want to squeeze in a game at the home of golf in St Andrews. If you miss out, fear not, Scotland is crammed full of golf courses as you will see - here.

Arbroath
The next day we headed out to take in the - Cairngorms National Park - and the - Royal Deeside - area. I was determined to find a stone circle or two as they are of interest to me and there are plenty circles, henges, cairns, barrows and all sorts of prehistoric monuments in Aberdeenshire.

The plan was to go via Inverurie to see the - Easter Aquhorthies - and then head toward Banchory to meet a friend who was doing a motor bike rally. Somehow we missed the turn-off and unfortunately stone circles are often not sign posted. Have a look at these sites before your trip to make sure you locate the stone circles before you leave for your journey - stone circles Aberdeenshire or - historic Scotland

Part 3 - next week deals with road trips via the Cairgorms National Park and Royal Deeside
 and in - Part 4 - I talk about Edinburgh.

For more on Scotland visit - here.

Go to - My Holidays and Trips - at the top of this page to read about other places we have visited. Or just click on - this link.

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