Wandering around Dundee

Tired from the overnight ferry and train from Aberdeen and slogging my kit up some of the steepest streets I’ve seen outside Glasgow, I spent sometime getting to know Kate, my AirBnB hostess and then set out to learn the neighborhood where I’d be staying for a week. A sudden hard downpour forced me into The Hill, a local pub.  The suddenness of the halt to the conversations of the 15 or so patrons as they noticed a stranger had come in meant that it was a real locals place. I looked around and simply stated, in my best Baston accent that I didn’t recognize a person in the place.  A couple quickly asked if I were an American whilst I was waiting for the one and only pint I’d have to buy the night.

Monte, the local keeper of all Dundee lore took me out side to see what he called a “plettie” a combo loo, laundry, and gathering place for the turn of the century poor who lived crammed into the attics of these buildings.

There were no dormers when a 1/2 dozen families would have called the attic section home.

As I wandered round Dundee next day I wondered what the penguin connection was as I had seen a couple of statues etc.  Then I remembered Robert Scott’s expedition to Antarctica in 1910 as I came upon his ship, Discovery, being re-masted. Dundee was it’s home port.

And I liked the windows on the Queen’s Hotel.

St Andrew’s Cathedral RC

Dundee was once the jute capital of the world producing sack, rope and many other things with this sustainable product.  The Verdant Works is a block of former jute mills turned into a museum.

And takes you through the process form handling raw jute to finshed products

And the old Watt steam engine was a good one.

From there I headed across the city to the McManus Museum and Gallery. There was an eclectic collection of items inside but it was the building that blew me away.  It looks like a reclaimed church but it was purpose built from a design by George Scott as a memorial for Prince Albert.

As I was photographing the outside I heard my named called which is an odd thing in a city I had only been in a few hours.  It was Monte from The Hill who informed me he had been part of the crew that laid the slate roof.

Inside the collection is both local and eclectic.

 

And this shows a strange political statement from 1982 with the stereotypical Scot in Kilt with  6 pack on belt and Uncle Sam as a salesman with weapons on offer .

This Greek bowl is around 500BC

Made from matches

First adhesive postage stamp printing press

Roman mile marker from the time of Hadrian’s Wall

Dug out boat

By this time I was getting footsore so when I noticed the name on this intricately decorated building across the street I knew I had spotted a good place to take a break.

That makes 5 BD’s Ive been in.