Aberdeen

Friday

An early start to get into Buchanan Street bus station to meet Jim for our mega bus trip to Aberdeen, the journey went smoothly and we arrived in plenty of time to check into our accommodation in The Lost Guest House in Bon Accord Street, I had stayed here previously and our room as Jim described it as “perfectly adequate” was ideal for our stay. Once checked in we visited a nearby hostelry for a late lunch and a refreshment before going to the local tourist information office to collect this year’s Nuart map. A stroll around town to familiarise ourselves and to see where the main Nuart facilities were taken up our afternoon and early evening. We did manage to see some of this year’s works and met some old friends, Kieran Globel included.

We then had a late dinner before heading to the Nuart Fight Club in the Spin Bar, which was really interesting and good fun, again it was to catch up with people I had met at previous festivals.

Saturday

After a nice breakfast, we set out with the map in hand to capture as many of the artworks we could find, again, this was a great way to see parts of the city we had never seen before or would not normally visit, lunch in one of Weatherspoon’s fine establishment fortified us for even more walking and artwork capture. A stroll around the newly refurbished Union Terrace Gardens topped off the afternoon with a pleasant coffee break, Jim managed to meet up with Denis Law, one of his heroes.
To get into the spirit of the festival, we visited the Aberdeen Art Gallery to hear a couple of the Nuart Plus talks, some of which were very interesting, especially the ‘meet the artist session’, before returning to the accommodation for a well-earned rest. We had dinner in Chinatown, reputed to be one of the best Chinese restaurants in Aberdeen (it lived up to its reputation) this set us up for another visit to Spin for the Nuart closing party, again it was good to meet some old friends and to make some new acquaintances.

Sunday

Again after yet another breakfast, we headed down to the harbour area to visit some of the murals painted in the years I had missed the festival, namely 2021 and 2022, it was good to see that they were still in great condition. We had a quick coffee break before a visit to the very interesting and informative Aberdeen Maritime Museum, which left us plenty of time for lunch before joining our pre-booked Nuart walking tour. The tour which started at the Marischal College led us through many of the recent murals in the city and also covered some of the older ones, our tour guide was very entertaining as he explained some of the stories behind the murals. All of the walking we had done required us to have a short refreshment break before returning to the accommodation for a rest period.

Monday

All too soon it was time to pack our bags and get ready to return to Glasgow so after our breakfast we checked out leaving our luggage, before going into town to capture the last 4 murals of the 49 main ones on the Nuart map. Again it was a bright sunny day and Aberdeen sparkled in the sun, it was good to take some time in the Union Terrace Gardens soaking up the rays. After lunch in our new Aberdeen local, The Grill on Union Street, we collected our bags before heading to the station to catch our bus to Glasgow. Looking back over our time in Aberdeen we had a great time, saw some great street art, met up with friends, old and new, and generally had a load of fun.

I haven’t posted my street art photographs here, they can be found on my dedicated Nuart page. I have put the photographs of the murals created each year into a separate page, i.e. Nuart 2021, Nuart 2022, and Nuart 2023.