Shopping

For many people, shopping is an important holiday experience and certainly one in which you can indulge in this part of Scotland.

Though city shopping first springs to mind - and Aberdeen offers modern shopping malls and High Street names as good as any city in Britain - the north-east has an excellent range of other speciality shops and other retail businesses both in and out of town.

Aberdeen boasts a huge range of shops, from high street names such as Marks & Spencer, John Lewis and Debenhams, as well as traditional independent retailers like the family-run Esslemont and MacIntosh department store on Union Street.

In addition to the larger stores, there are five shopping centres in the city: The St. Nicholas Centre off St. Nicholas Street , The Bon Accord Centre immediately behind it on Schoolhill/Upperkirkgate, The Academy just up the road on the corner of Schoolhill and Belmont Street. At the far end of Belmont Street, there is one of four entrances to The Trinity Centre. Finally, a little further up Union Street, in Bon Accord Square, is the trendiest of Aberdeen's shopping centres, The Galleria.