First Days in Aberdeen*//Maritimity Everywhere

*Some of the words in Aberdeen-related posts will feature words, in addition to ship names, in italics. These words are part of the dialect of Scots spoken in the North East of Scotland, Doric. 

Scotland has always been at the top of my travel bucket list. Not only did it boast moody, dreary, and tempestuous weather on the coasts (seriously, my favorite weather!) and some epic scenery, I grew up with an awareness that in the 20th century, part of my family decided to leave the coastal city of Aberdeen for the United States. So naturally, as a maritime historian, my desire to explore the “Silver City by the Sea”* (according to family-*variations on this moniker are used in tourism) piqued when I found myself choosing where to base myself in Scotland while using the month of May to explore the country. It also helps that it had a brand new Residence Inn by Marriott, an extended stay hotel in the center of the city so I could collect points and reward nights at the same time; I had lived in Residence Inns when I was displaced so I also knew that I wouldn’t find myself in some creepy situation had I sublet or used AirBnB for a month. 

When I arrived, I found a city that was still deeply rooted in their relationship to the adjacent North Sea. Markers of intangible maritime cultural heritage are pervasive and inescapable: oil rig workers with their waterproof bags around town, maritime professionals at the hotel breakfast speaking Norwegian and English (using Houston references), nautical signs and names of various business, and public art that covers thousands of square meters of the iconic granite buildings. When I left, I found a city that was more than just an address on family inter-war letters, it was now a place that filled my phone with photos and decidedly nautical memories and somewhere I felt physically at home. 

There is no way I can share my time in Aberdeen//Scotland in one post, and I never thought to try. This post will cover the my first impressions and visit to the Aberdeen Maritime Museum; more posts will follow that recount more of my wanderings. 

The Basics

View of Durham Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, from the LNER train. Durham was not a stop on the route, but we nevertheless were greeted by the lovely view.

Originally, I planned on driving to Aberdeen from London (click here to see how I got to London). I pretty quickly decided to take the train from St. Pancreas as I was still adjusting to being on land and didn’t want to add, “driving 2 days on the other side of the road” to the list of things to do. I booked standard fare on the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) and was pleasantly surprised with a whistle stop tour of the larger UK cities like York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Edinburgh. Like any train trip, I stocked up on food before I boarded. There is a food car onboard, and free WiFI. I spent most of my time staring out the window, sleeping, watching movies//shows I downloaded, and planing out life in Aberdeen. 

First view of the North Sea and Scotland in the Scottish Borders.

I got an extended stay rate at the Residence Inn by Marriott on Guestrow which is about 10 min walk from Union Station. HOWEVER, walking up a hill with 2.5 suitcases (I was bringing stuff to friends) at night was eagerly aborted when I found a car to take me an embarrassing half kilometer or so to my hotel. There is no Uber in Aberdeen and the taxi apps I tried upon arrival were useless. You pretty much have to old school it. Also, many of the drivers are older Aberdonians who will unintentionally require tired foreigners to Google their way through beginners’ Doric (the Scots dialect spoken in Aberdeenshire and Moray). My greeting was a kind//cheeky, “What are ye doing, moovin’ hoose?!”. Confirmation number one that my family is DEFINITELY Aberdonian. You can also fly//connect to Aberdeen with BA and regional airlines; from Aberdeen you can get to the Nordics via Stavanger. I booked my SAS ticket to Stavanger for 8000 United MileagePlus miles (my record low points ticket!)—vs. $200 a ticket for a commuter flight—then took another lovely train to Sweden.

First day views from my window at the Residence Inn Aberdeen. Marischal College looms over the historic area of Guestrow.

Fit like, Aberdeen?//How’s it going, Aberdeen?

View from Union Station to Regent Quay in daylight the morning after I arrived.

It took seconds from stepping off of the train at Union Station for me to find the first markers of Aberdeen’s intimate relationship to the sea. The first indications amounted to the flurry of maritime professionals rushing around the station with their waterproof bags from a litany of oil, energy, and logistics firms all vying for the quickest taxi to the heliport (from there helicopters can access the many oil platforms in the North Sea) or to their hotel. Like Houston and Stavanger, Aberdeen is a major hub for the oil and gas industry. Walking out of Union Station, one is practically on the edge of Trinity//Upper Quay (pronouced “key”) in the Upper Dock of Aberdeen Harbour; unlike Houston, you can get within close proximity of ships and port property as the city’s center has been always intimately interwoven with access to the water. My first view of the Granite City was night lights reflecting off of the mica-rich granite buildings of Trinity Quay, and an offshore supply vessel (OSV)- its stern only a few feet from the edge of Market Street. My first morning in town, the connection to the sea kept continuously jumping out at me, even at the Morrisons (supermarket), where I found myself surrounded by North East//Aberdeenshire//Moray regional dishes for sale and purchased by every type of person you could imagine. I also discovered that I realllllyyyy like Smoked Haddock (as in, a British market in Houston has cold smoked haddock—Finnan Haddie*—so I drove to Houston and bought some this Sunday). Even more dangerous, there is a smoked haddock chowder called Cullen Skink. And I thought I loved clam chowder. Hahaha. Someone in Aberdeenshire send a can, or 12, or Cullen Skink ASAP. Cheers.

A note on smoked haddock names: Finnan Haddie is the name for Aberdeenshire//Moray cold-smoked haddock; Arbroath Smokies are hot-smoked haddock from Arbroath a bit further south along the coast from Aberdeenshire in Angus. Hot-smoked also means one can eat the end-product cold and that’s a jet-lagged//lazy person’s dream. 

FREE.MARITIME.MUSEUM

Aberdeen Maritime Museum//The Basics

Shiprow

Aberdeen AB11 5BY

Place of Interest #43 on the Aberdeenshire Coastal Trail

                #8 on Aberdeen City Council’s North Sea Trail

    #1 on Aberdeen City Council’s Maritime Heritage Trail

View of Aberdeen Maritime Museum, with Trinity Congregational Church on the left, and Provost Ross’ House on the right.

There are many reminders of Texas’ part in the Aberdeen oil boom. And not just the stories from Laurence or the fellow Texans at the hotel.

Quick background story: A tiny part of my reason for going to Aberdeen was a promise I made to a beloved docent when I worked at the Houston Maritime Museum. Laurence was a life-long oilman (and my “work grandfather”) who had lived in Aberdeen ca. 1990’s and, while talking about maritime museums in Europe, he told me how much he loved the Aberdeen Maritime Museum. I told him I’d wanted to go as my family is from there, and I promised I wouldn’t miss it. As I had booked this trip by the time we gathered in Houston for his funeral and bagpipes rang in my ear (he was a piper, naturally), I knew that there was absolutely no way I could miss it. And as usual, Laurence was right. 

Panel inside the entrance to the Museum.

Shiprow is just a few steps from the Residence Inn, and the museum is free, so it took me about 20 seconds to way-too-eagerly bound from the lobby to the front door of the museum. Honestly, I would have happily paid admission especially compared to some museums I’ve paid for. The Aberdeen Maritime Museum—which is itself a part of the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums—is partially housed in the second-oldest building in Aberdeen, Provost Ross’ House, which dates from 1593. John Ross, the Lord Provost [head of civic authority and personal representative of the British Sovereign in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen], from 1710-1712, was a merchant involved in trade with Holland so his home being a street separated from Upper Dock is a fitting choice. After serving Aberdeen as a tenement and other uses, it was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland and has been used by the Museum as an exhibit space since 1984. Part of the Museum was renovated and expanded in 1997. 

On the outside, the museum looks almost like three distinct buildings, the Trinity Congregational Church, the glass entrance, and Provost Ross’ House. Once you walk inside, there is an information desk and lovely docents ready to help you plan your day—or—you can head straight to into the first level of exhibits in what was the church. The exhibits are ordered both thematically and chronologically—this is quite natural as the nature [themes] of maritime life changes with time. I really enjoyed how the Museum interpreted the city’s long maritime heritage—Aberdeen’s maritime-based economy has been documented as far back as the 12th century—without relying too heavily on the ornate ships and objects which find to their way to those in the upper classes. Though there is a prominent exhibit on the North Sea oil boom—whose income revitalized the area’s sluggish economy after the wars and as the dominate shipbuilding, fishing, and transport industries died out—there are just as many exhibits that memorialize the everyday Aberdonians who made ends meet by working on boats, at the harbor, or on the beaches//outside their fishing shacks processing fish. The Museum also has one of my favorite features in any maritime museum, a view of the working harbor from inside the exhibit space. There was also a really neat, digitalized film reel playing that showed the city during the early 20th century—when my family still lived there. 

View of Aberdeen Harbour’s Upper Dock from inside the Trinity Church portion of the Museum.

Aberdeen Maritime Museum//Downsides:

-Museum Store was underwhelming. I think museums have a really cool opportunity to engage with the local communities and visitors through what they offer and, other than some books on local maritime life, there wasn’t anything I found that I could buy there to remind me of what I saw in the Museum; or something that I couldn’t find in every other Scotland-themed gift shop. 

-Um…. it was rainy and granite is slippery?

-There aren’t enough open hours for one really go through and admire every little thing in one day. At least for me. 

-I would have liked to see some kind of media display (think MarineTraffic) that would show you what you are seeing through the window at the harbor. 

Aberdeen Maritime Museum//Upsides:

-Free; though I would happily pay.

-I loved the flowing space, instead of only steps and your everyday stairwells, the floors are connected with curved ramps that keep the space open and airy. 

-Stories that pretty succinctly cover the long history and far-reaching influences of Aberdeen’s relationship to the sea. 

Now that I was acclimated…

After visiting the museum and getting acquainted with the town, food, and general atmosphere (which I love… its like Boston and Gloucester, and a bit of Houston, were mashed together and decided to use a Scottish accent), I was really excited I had chosen to spend a month in the North East of Scotland and was ready to find more odes to the sea and remnants of Scotland’s long maritime history in the most innocuous of places. 

Nautical public art in Aberdeen:

Left: Outside Bos’n Tapas Bar in the Academy. This bar may have recently closed. Center: Mural by street painter, M City//Mariusz Waras. Right: Artwork by Gabi Reith as part of the Painted Doors Aberdeen initiative.

Gee… I wonder what I may have done next :)