What would you make of Aberdeen if you were arriving for the very first time with little prior knowledge, fresh from hopping around a handful of other coastal towns?
With the advent of the port’s £400 million South Harbour, Aberdeen is to chart a course as a tourist destination.
Already the cruise ships promised as a result of the deeper berths have begun to arrive.
Dozens of ships collectively carrying thousands of visitors are scheduled to visit the Granite City by the end of the year.
And their first impressions have been a wake up call for city leaders plotting a way forward for Union Street.
Hosting a recent town hall meeting on the Granite Mile, Our Union Street chairman Bob Keiller revealed initial feedback reflected its “slow downward spiral”.
He told the Music Hall: “Imagine if a German tourist came off a cruise ship and said ‘this is a wonderful place’…
“Rather than, as one did say, ‘are the street cleaners on strike?’”
Enter stage: The Amera and hundreds of tourists in Aberdeen
On Thursday, the telltale tan of a fortnight’s cruise was a significant clue that another ship was in harbour.
For two weeks, the £125 million Amera had carried hundreds of German tourists around Iceland’s shores.
Aberdeen, via Kirkwall, was the last stop on a ‘journey of discovery in the footsteps of the Vikings’ (Entdeckerfahrt auf den Spuren der Wikinger).
As the first busload arrived outside His Majesty’s Theatre, the weather was just as the city’s tourism tsars must have wished for.
A cloudless blue sky and roaring sun welcomed the visitors off the Watermill bus, which carted them to and from the city centre every hour.
Most followed Rosemount Viaduct down Schoolhill and Upperkirkgate.
Few seemed bothered by the city being a work in progress.
Piles of mud were being levelled in Union Terrace Gardens after the £30 million revamp.
Scaffolding wrapped around the north end of Marischal College did not have any bearing on the near-constant stream of picture posing.
Part of Broad Street was still barricaded after the kerb collapsed under the weight of its bus-only traffic.
And, it was there that we began to ask for first impressions of our city.
Aberdeen’s history a key attraction for cruise ship tourists
Tina and Christian, from near Frankfurt, had headed straight to Broad Street to see what’s said to be the world’s second largest granite building.
“We have just arrived in Aberdeen and our first thoughts are that it’s very nice.
“The old buildings are very beautiful. This is our second time in Scotland but our first in Aberdeen.”
The sun certainly made Marischal College the sparkling granite jewel in Aberdeen’s architectural crown.
Wolfgang and Karl were also just beginning their journey around the city when we caught up to them.
“We have seen the oldest house,” Karl told us, referring to nearby Provost Skene’s House, first built in 1545.
Adorned in sunglasses and straw hats, the friends said they were looking forward to exploring Old Aberdeen and St Machar’s Cathedral before returning to the ship at 5pm.
Aberdeen’s many churches turned pubs are ‘wunderbar!’
Others were not for straying as far as the banks of the River Don.
When we met them, pensioners Giselle and Kurt had not made it beyond Belmont Street off the bus.
They were delighted with the novelty of visiting a church which had been converted into a pub. There are a few to pick from on that single street alone.
But, it was the whisky selection in the gothic Slains Castle which won over Giselle.
“Wunderbar!” she added.
Others were more adventurous in wandering off the beaten track.
Married couple Klaus and Mary Alice, along with their friends Marika and Herbert, spent the day visiting Footdee, which they called the “Fish Village”, as well as Duthie Park.
While Mary Alice said the quartet had a ‘super good time,’ the group admitted having difficulty finding places to buy coffee or ice cream on Union Street.
Aberdeen beach is much better than The P&J’s German
Initially, the going was tough. The first three or four German groups we approached did not have the patience or the English to deal with the local zeitung (newspaper).
The solution was a script prepared in rusty German by our in-house multilingual extraordinaire Denny Andonova.
However, 70-year-old stickler Rita clearly expected more from as prestigious a title as The Press and Journal, reigning Scottish news site of the year.
“Would you like me to correct it for you?” she – and we – laughed.
But before long, a pen was wrestled from us and edits were being made. Sternly.
Travelling from Hagen, Rita said Aberdeen was a “very nice city” from what she had seen in her few hours off the cruiseliner.
“We have been at the beach, which is wonderful. We have been to Scotland three or four times but not Aberdeen before.
“The nature, down by beach, is what we have liked best so far… that and the weather is very good.”
Aberdeen beach previously drew tourists from across Scotland, particularly during the Glasgow Fair fortnight.
Now, the city council is trying to revive the seafront, as well as the city centre, with a £150 million masterplan.
Elton fans bask: Don’t let the sun go down on me
There were other tourists in town too.
Visitors and Aberdonians alike were enjoying the sun.
After years of construction, sunseekers have finally been afforded a return to UTG.
There is no lawn yet but they made do with the new benches down the slopes as they basked or read in the sunlight.
One city hospitality boss, boasting a packed outdoor area, said as well as the cruise passengers, the city was full of Sir Elton John fans.
“Some have come down from Orkney but there are many from the continent.
“We have had a lot of Italian Elton fans in today.
“But the sun always brings people out anyway,” he hurriedly said before rushing back to man tables.
The musical megastar played his last show in Aberdeen on Thursday night, the second on the Aberdeen leg of his farewell tour.
Some parts of Aberdeen are clean… others are ‘clean enough’
As we dodged the soaking children frolicking in the fountain in front of Marischal College, we met Gabriel and Antonio from Madrid.
They are taking in much of Scotland touring by car.
The madrilenos had already been to Edinburgh, Fort William and Loch Ness before arriving in Aberdeen on Wednesday night.
Antonio, 59, said: “We like it here. It is different from other cities.
“It is not so crowded. There are not many tourists. People are very friendly.
“It has been easy to find our way around but we thought things were closer together.
“We are having to walk a lot because it’s larger than we expected.”
But it was then that Gabriel spoke out apologetically, as if afraid of offending us.
“In my opinion, it’s not clean.
“I am sorry to say that there are cigarette ends and rubbish lying around.”
His perspective was shared by Elke, a German tourist travelling with partner Edgar.
She said Aberdeen was a “nice town with friendly people” and a “fantastic” place to visit.
But wryly she remarked that some places were clean, and other parts “were clean enough”.
Could on/off bus services spread the tourist wealth across Aberdeen?
Maybe it was the limited 10-hour knowledge of Aberdeen on a glorious June day but there were calls for open top bus tours of the city.
The practicalities of such a mode of transport on the average north-east day might pose challenges.
Dagmar and her husband Manfred were enjoying the sunny weather. But they felt attractions outwith the city centre were unobtainable.
They felt that an “on/off” style bus, similar to those in Edinburgh and London, would have improved their day.
“We only went in five or ten minute circles,” Dagmar told us.
When asked if they would have visited Aberdeen landmarks beyond the city centre, Manfred replied: “We’ve not enough time…”
The couple had arrived outside His Majesty’s Theatre at 12pm, and just two hours later, were heading back to the ship.
There were buses running back to the harbour until 5pm.
In contrast, Maike from Hanover thought Aberdeen was “very easy” to navigate.
“I have been to different cities and I think the way Aberdeen is set out and described is ok for tourists.
“We didn’t know what to expect. This is our first time in Scotland but we are very impressed with the city.
“There is a lot of stone… If the weather is always like this, we will come again,” she joked with husband Bernd.
Grumwald: ‘What could Aberdeen do better? Toilets!’
Camera-shy Grumwald, who spoke to us within his last 30 minutes in Aberdeen, also had constructive feedback for city chiefs.
Perhaps spending more time in the city centre than others had left him with a better idea of one particular drawback.
“What could Aberdeen do better?
“I don’t know… toilets? They are important,” he laughed.
“I have liked the buildings and the maps on most corners.”
But as an electric bus whined loudly past us, he added: “It is very busy with traffic and Union Street is very noisy, ja.”
New public toilets in the city centre have been built as part of the Union Terrace Gardens revamp.
However, despite the park’s opening in December, city chiefs still won’t tell us when they will unlock the doors.
Last impressions of Aberdeen: Long bus wait on sweltering day
It was not long before Grumwald, Maike and Bernd were among those on the last bus out of Aberdeen.
Nine minutes before departure, all but one German tourist boarded the idling coach outside His Majesty’s Theatre.
The majority promptly packed onboard and baked as their driver finished a cigarette by the door.
Meanwhile a woman, dressed in the Amera’s uniform of an azure blue shirt and white trousers, rattled away on Facetime before the bus left promptly at 5pm.
The tourists set sail an hour later, safely with the notion that it is always sunny in Aberdeen.
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