Photo by Karen Bryan

Dundee lies on the east coast of Scotland, 40 miles north of Edinburgh on the Tay Estuary. Quite frankly we used to think of Dundee as a very uninspiring place, wallowing in limbo after the decline of traditional manufacturing industries—but boy has it moved on.

Dundee’s renaissance started in the 1980s when the ship Discovery, built in Dundee and used by Captain Scott on his Antarctic trip, was returned to the city as a visitor attraction. The city is now a renowned center for biomedical research and the development of computer games. The View, one of the UK’s hottest bands at the moment, are from Dundee as well.

Dundee’s not trying to obliterate its past, either. There’s a award winning industrial museum, the Verdant Works. Some of the best known characters from the Beano and Dandy comics—published in Dundee since the 1930s—including Desperate Dan, Minnie the Minx, and Gnasher the Dog, are celebrated in bronze sculptures in the city centre.

Many of the Victorian facades in the city center have been renovated, the quayside has been developed, and Dundee has become a leading Scottish retail center. A couple of miles east of Dundee there’s a lovely beach at Broughty Ferry.

Best of all, as Dundee has changed it has become neither too gentrified nor too pretentious.

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