A Shift in Focus

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Today we head north to Aberdeen and the eastern shoreline. The real purpose of this part of the trip is a bit of pre-retirement investigation. Our plan is to retire in either France or Spain (Carcassonne is currently the leading contender) and spend most of our time there, but when July and August come and the tourists, we are looking for somewhere a bit more remote but yet still accessible by train. This leads us to Scottish Coast. Ideally would be to find a lovey village like the one in Doc Martin. Our search will take us to several small villages along the coast, but more on that later.

As for now, our train is at 9:30, allowing us a leisure final breakfast in the Old Waverly and a simple walk across the street to catch our train.

The train ride was very pleasant, first-class car so the seats were very comfortable and not many other passengers, except the couple from Sydney Australia on a four-month trip. I did some blogging on the train, Jerry read up on the places yet to visit. There was complimentary tea and coffee, but water cost extra, don’t ask me why but it did. It was about a two- and one-half hour trip mostly along the coast, and yes passed the famous St. Andrews Golf Course.

Some Side Comments

Yes, golfing is huge here, the green space is either a pasture or a golf course, there are tons of them. One we passed was along the edge of the North Sea. I would end up hitting every ball in to the ocean.

Daylight, it is always daylight. At 11:00 pm it is as light here as it would be at 9:00 pm in the summer back home. I did not realize that we were that far north, almost like the places that have endless days.

We arrived in Aberdeen and then it was off to get the car. Yes, another adventure driving on the other side. We had to go to the airport to pick up the car. The guy at the front desk was very helpful and not only gave us an extr4a driver at no charge (Yes, Jerry might attempt to drive, then he will see it isn’t that easy to stay away from the left edge) he also advised the pre paying the fuel was the better option based on where we were returning the car. He even gave us a restaurant recommendation, which turned out to be a life saver.

We are just at the half way point of the trip, meaning it is time for laundry. Part of the pre-trip planning is Jerry doing the research to find a place that does laundry by the pound and dry cleaning. If we didn’t do this, we would have another suitcase to lug around. Before laundry was a stop at a wine shop to get our wine-thirty stock for the next 5 days. The prices here are so low compared to the States. Good Bordeaux for under 20 pounds. Next up was the laundry service. We got a bit turned around on the way there, but did manage to find it fairly easily, even a parking spot (without parallel parking, I don’t even want to try that on the other side) directly in front of the cleaners. Finally, we arrived at the hotel.

There is a ton of construction happening at the Union Terrace Gardens directly across from our hotel, and we parked in a construction zone just so I could go check in. Good news, parking for the hotel was directly behind down a small alley and the spaces were not your typical tiny car only. This works out great because we have a VW Passat and it is a little larger than what we normally rent and the trunk is huge, all of our luggage fits in it.

I checked in we parked the car, and headed up to the room, combination of steps and elevator. Again, our room is way in a corner, nice view, but a bit of a hike and the room is fairly small for a Deluxe Double (lost in translation I guess). After a quick unpack of the hanging items we were in search of lunch. Aberdeen was very difficult to find places to eat when we were planning. We did have reservations but as you will see plans changed constantly. After we fully checked in and unpacked, we were off for a late lunch and quick tour of the city center. Lunch was to be at Old Blackfraris at the beginning of our walking tour, unfortunately earlier in the week they e-mailed us saying they had to close because their kitchen stopped working. I am not sure what that really means, how does an entire kitchen stop working? Any way we walked around and found The Wild Boar, pub also somewhat on our walking tour. To our surprise the food was pretty good, well actually the best fish & chips of the trip, properly seasoned and the fries nice and crisp. Jerry had a Grilled Irish Cheddar Toastee and onion rings. I wasn’t driving so Rose to top it off and a large one at that.

Aberdeen is on the North Sea and not really a tourist destination itself. There are several universities here and the big industry is Oil. Aberdeen is a great city to use as a base because from here there is the Castle Tour, including Balmoral, the Whiskey Trail, and numerous seaside villages. The original trip had both the castle tour and whiskey trial, but they were cut on the final version as we did not have the day, since we had to file in and out of London. However, it is our base to research costal cities for July & August during our retirement, that begins tomorrow.

The walking tour was short, starting on Union Street. The first stop was St. Nicholas Kirk, the original village church. It is undergoing some renovation and they were just locking up right as we walked in the graveyard. Next, we walked by the Tolbooth Museum. The building was originally the city hall, court and jail. Just up the street is Mercat Cross, originally built in 1686 and restored in 1820. Mercat stems from marketplace, which is the symbolic center of a Medieval Scottish village.

The walked continued by Marischal College, founder in 1953 and His Majesties Theater. This led us full circle back to Union Terrace Gardens and our hotel. Went up to the room relaxed and did some blogging.

Dinner was an adventure. We had made a reservation at the IX restaurant in the Chester Hotel (one of the nicest hotels in the city). This reservation was made specifically because we liked the three-course menu they had on their website, which I checked the week before we left. It required a cab, because it was to far to walk and I didn’t want to drive because we would of course have wine at dinner. When we got there, it immediately went south, the host (turned out to be the manager) greeted us we said we had a reservation, reply was not open until next week. She then showed us to a filthy courtyard table. Five minutes later she was back as I requested to speak to a manager, when she showed up knew we were doomed. I explained our frustration (in a very clam tone) her response was “well the website clearly said it was closed”, the truth was no it did not, as it clearly posted the menu being offered. Long story short, we had her call us a cab and left.

Fortunately, we remembered that the guy at Europcar recommended Miller & Carter. We had the cab take us directly there, and lucky without a reservation we got in. The place was packed. I think that tells you something about the extreme lack of good restaurants in the city. Well, our misfortune turned into a great steak dinner. Steak is the king here; they do have other options but it truly is all about steak.

The ordering processes

· Choose your type and size of steak

· Choose how you want it cooked from well done to blue

· Choose your steak sauce, so many to pick from

· Choose your wedge dressing (every steak comes with a wedge salad)

· Choose your side.

In addition, a slice of onion loaf comes with your entrée. I must explain the onion loaf, first at the first bite, you have died and gone to onion heaven. Somehow, they perfectly carnalized onions baked them in a loaf pan and then somehow managed to have them crispy as well. This is going to take several attempts to re-create.

Jerry had an 8oz fillet with the bearnaise, I had an 8 oz black angus ribeye with truffle infused porcini mushroom sauce. We both had the Stilton & Blue cheese dressing on our wedge and both choose the Triple-cooked chunky chips as our side.

We started with the Bread board, served with olives and blended beef dripping butter, there was a hint of paprika. This was so much better than what the IX would have been even if it was open. I was so full; I couldn’t even eat all of my steak and there was no room for dessert. Through out the meal we had a great chat with our server, quite sure he is a Friend of Dorothy. He is off to work at Disney World for the next couple of years. He heard all about our evening earlier and suggested some other places we might try (none of which worked out for us). He even gave us a complimentary sticky toffey pudding.

A rough start to Aberdeen, but the day ended on a positive note. Even with the train and driving, we still got in 8,198 steps. Oh, if you haven’t figured it out the onion loaf was the dish of the day, in the running for dish of the trip.

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Comments

[Sharon Hughson]

Pictures?
What? No picture of the onion loaf? I am trying to imagine what it looks like. Onions baked into bread? This isn't what the description sounded like. I'm looking forward to hearing about your village tours.

[Home and Away]

Scotland...
Your blogs are providing me with a prelude to my own visit to Scotland at the end of August. Thanks for posting!