My mum and I have birthdays a few weeks apart and this year it was a nice combination of ages so we organised a little mini break in Dundee & St Andrews with Nicolette as well. Here’s some of what we got up to.
Dundee might seem like a weird choice but it has great train service for all of us to meet up. We stayed in a hotel (Four Points Flex by Sheraton Dundee) right above the station and this was pretty much the view from my room, just a bit higher up! The weather was a bit gloomy and cold when we arrived so we spent it at the V&A including afternoon tea.
It was really fancy and themed around Dundee with lots of local flavours and specialties, and even an espresso cup of soup to start! You can see the full menu on my Flickr – my favourites were the haddock & leek croque monsieur, Forfar bridie and 2 scones (berry & haggis). The Dundee cake was really good for fruit cake too (I’m not usually a fan).
The next day was gorgeous and perfect timing for our day trip to St Andrews. Top of the list was the Botanic Garden as when we visited back in 2019 it was pouring rain. They’ve been making some huge changes since then, which are still in progress, so it was a little bit disappointing. Last time we spent most of our time in the glass houses (including a seasonal butterfly event), but they are all gone! It’s still nice for a walk and everything looks beautiful in the sunshine but there’s not a lot to see yet and it would have been no fun at all in bad weather.
We did spend some time wandering around St Andrews too but I didn’t really take any photos. It’s a nice wee town with lots of history and independent shops and cafes so definitely recommended. Easy bus trip from Dundee too.
We didn’t have any plans for our final morning but ended up spending most of it at The McManus, the main art gallery & museum. It had a really good mix of exhibitions and lots of random objects and local history stuff. We also had more lovely weather so got to retake some photos at the V&A with blue skies.
I had completely forgotten about Fisher & Donaldson (amazing local bakers) and was delighted to see this hilarious Easter version of their famous frog cakes. I thought I had missed out by not getting one on Easter Monday but thankfully they were still there on Wednesday so I could take one home.
We did pretty well for food overall so I’m listing some of the places we went for future reference.
- The Flame Tree Cafe (rainbow bagels & cinnamon bun)
- Black Mamba (great tapas, really filling and affordable)
- Mitchell St Andrews (that frittata was so good!)
There’s a few more photos on my Flickr.
