Aberdeen: the grey granite city

Union Street, the main artery of the city over one kilometer long, lines gray granite facades that have earned it the nickname 'Granite City'.

A short walk away, the Union Terrace Gardens, a public park in a valley in the heart of the city, offer a green refuge among stone buildings.

Continuing on, you visit the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, which tells the story of fishing and the North Sea oil industry linked to the city port.

In the evening, Aberdeen's sandy beach, which stretches for two kilometers right at the city's edge, offers a walk along the North Sea.

The granite used to build Aberdeen contains mica crystals that, under direct sunlight, make the building facades literally glitter, a phenomenon rarely observable due to Scotland's often cloudy climate.

Aberdeen has become since the nineteen-seventies one of Europe's leading centers for the offshore oil industry, thanks to deposits discovered in the North Sea off the coast.