Scots abroad have a reputation, how shall we put it, of knowing the value of a penny. No doubt this had a historical basis, when the poor and spendthrift Scots, sprung fom a harsh and uncertain environment, were made fun of by their richer European partners. Scots may join in on the joke (it saves on bar expenses), or protest that today, they give more money to charity, spent more on Christmas, and give more to their children, than anyone else in Britain (which is true, especially in the more socialist west and Glasgow). But if they are in the mood for having a little fun themselves, they will pick on the people of Aberdeen, who are tarred as being the meanest in Scotland, something which - if the caricatures are true - must make them the meanest people in the world. People here are perhaps a little more reserved, and slow to take you to their heart, but they are the most honest, hard working, and quietly self confident people in Scotland.

The reason I like Aberdeen so much is probably because I got my first decent job here, working offshore for the oil industry, after being a student and two years of menial jobs in Glasgow. But there is plenty to like about the city. It is unique in Scotland in having virtually full employment - one day the oil industry will leave, but until then Aberdeen is a city of opportunity. Yet even before the 1970's and the north sea oil boom, Aberdeen was a prosperous market town for the wide farming hinterland and its large fishing fleet. It is the cleanest city on Scotland, and is again unique in being built almost entirely from the one stone, a handsome, hardwearing, grey granite. Some people find this uniform greyness bleak and depressing. Coming from the west coast, I find Aberdeen bright and sunny, and the granite glows solidly and healthily in the sun. Even on dark wet days, there is little evidence of graffitti, and, being granite, the stonework does not decay. All over Aberdeen are handsome Victorian buildings, and, while only a few of them individually could be said to be of national importance, taken as a whole, the city has a very pleasing unified effect.

The countryside of north east Scotland is a wedge of farms crisscrossed by narrow, unsignposted roads, lying in the rainshadow of the Cairngorm mountains that can be seen hulking to the west from prominent viewpoints. To the north of Aberdeen at Cruden Bay sits the rambling ruin of Slains Castle, and local legend has it that this gothic pile was the inspiration for the novel Dracula after Bram Stoker came here for a visit. Perhaps he was also inspired by the similarly gothic, but entirely natural, Bullers of Buchan, a strange coastline of collapsed seacaves and stacks just to the north of Slains. The rest of the coast generally consists of long beaches, neat cliffs and insular fishing towns. Many of these villages are picturesque, like Pennan or Sandend, but possibly the quaintest of all is Crovie. This single-street village is wedged so tightly between sea and cliff that there is no room for a road, and visitors must park at the top of the seacliffs and walk down to the village, connected to nearby Gardenstown by a fine coastal path. Away from these low seacliffs there is no spectacular scenery, but there are a series of castles which match, and perhaps surpass, those of Argyll; if not in their situation, then certainly in the well-preserved richness of their interiors. Craigievar, Castle Fraser, and Fyvie are preeminent in a choice of scores of fortresses, of which perhaps a dozen are well worth a detour.

There are only a few hills of note in this area, and Bennachie, which would be a prominent landmark anywhere with its unusual summit tor, is perhaps all the better known for having so few rivals. It is celebrated in song and legend and the tor, Mither Tap, gives an unsurpassed panorama of the entire Grampian area, from the Mounth in the south, Aberdeen to the east, the Cairngorms and foothills to the west, and the rolling farmland of Aberdeenshire and Buchan to the north, all the way to another small but prominent landmark, Mormond Hill. This hill has a white horse carved in its side, but this is an 18thc copy of the prehistoric Uffington horse in the south of England, rather than an original itself. Which is not to say that the northeast is short of its own prehistoric monuments. Pictish carved stones abound, reaching their zenith in Sueno's Stone and the Maiden stone, and the area has the greatest concentration of prehistoric stone circles in Britain, a form unique to the British isles (the most famous being Stonehenge, in the south of England). Especially atmospheric are Midmar, Loanhead of Daviot, Auquhorthies, and Sunhoney; standing at these stones, set in heavy rural earth, one realises that the Picts, and the present day people of the north east, are one and the same: descendants from these early people - not quick tongued nowcomers like the Gaels but the old, solid, suspicious, prehistoric people of Britain.

Around the coasts lie numerous fishing villages. Here the coast is not torturous like the west but straight, a few beaches alternating with low cliffs. It is potentially as good a tourist area as Cornwall but there are few tourists here, perhaps put off by the large detour required from the Edinburgh to Inverness tourist 'trade route'. Or perhaps put off by the winds and colder weather. It is an inhospitable coast for landing fishing boats, but part of the reason for the number of busy fishing villages must surely be down to the temperament of the people of the north east, who have the money to buy large fishing vessels, and the business sense and work ethic to run them. These fishing towns are a breed apart from the farming villages, and the people stick together more and are less welcoming of strangers than is normal even in the northeast. Along the coast one comes to Elgin and its beautiful ruined cathedral, and the seacliffs relent to a shallow coast of sandy bays and forests. These swathes of dunes have swallowed entire villages in the past, and perhaps with the actions of wind and tide and time may yet reveal their buried secrets. At the mouth of the River Spey the curious traveller may venture inland, and, as the hills start to rise, and valleys become narrower, a strange smell may be detected in the air:
Whisky.