fresh sundays: exploring dundee

I never used to be one for fresh Sunday’s. Every Saturday night I’d be drunk beyond belief suffering from a night full of bad actions and an incredible hangover. Nowadays, I feel old and grown and especially with uni its not a good idea for me to be going out, so there’s a lot more fresh Sunday’s to come!

I’ve lived in Dundee my whole life and being the unadventurous teen I was, I stayed here for university. Everything was simple here, I could live at home, already had a job, all my friends and family were here and Dundee Uni was the best in Scotland for Maths at my time of applying! A perfect fit really, so I’m still here 20 years later.

Dundee is the city of discovery and recently a new V&A museum has been built here. I believe it opened up at the end of September and it has been really busy since. I hadn’t had a chance to go see it cause I was always so busy with uni and/or work, but with my restaurant being closed for holidays and no uni work as of yet, what better way to spend a fresh Sunday other than exploring your own town!

Euan and I kicked off the day with brunch – a big tasty fry up to set us up for the day. We first headed to the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) where there were 2 small art exhibitions on. The exhibitions here are (like the name of the place) contemporary and get changed every 2-3 months. The first exhibit really wasn’t up my alley just because of how incredibly dark it was. The second was called “Pieces of You Are Here” by Lorna MacKintyre which I thought was quite cool (although I don’t particularly understand contemporary art for the most part).

After a quick stop at the DCA we headed down to the V&A which (lemme tell you) is architecturally stunning!! Although a lot of the space inside is mostly structural framework (I definitely think there could be better use of the space) it is overall incredibly well designed. I mean, it is a design museum after all.

The current exhibition (which is due to change soon) was about ocean liners but we decided we’re too broke atm to fork out to pay for this one. Instead we went to the free Scottish Design Exhibition which I really enjoyed! I thought it was really informative and I liked the treasure hunt book you got and you could collect all the stamps around the exhibit! It really helps to ensure you haven’t missed anything and was definitely a shout for the kids (and big kids like me and euan hehe).

A small exhibition but it definitely made me more informed on Scottish Design and I particularly liked the Charles Rennie MacKintosh oak tea room replica inside! There were dresses on display that have featured in movies such as the one worn by Natalie Portman in Star Wars. My favourites of this exhibition were the glittering winged tiara and the concept behind the artwork for the Scottish £10 note. (I want this tiara so much, look how pretty omg!!!! You’re not actually allowed to take a picture of the £10 note design so that’s missing here also unfortunately)

The exhibition was small but really good I thought! I’ll definitely be going back to see the Ocean liners exhibit before it goes. I’ve heard so many negative reviews about the new museum being too small and a lot of wasted space. I do partly agree with this but at the end of the day, I think the architectural design of it is stunning and creates further emphasis on the fact that it is, in fact, a DESIGN museum.

Here’s some pics of our wander around the outside of the building, it’s absolutely stunning and I think we came at the perfect time of the day cause look at how stunning it is!!! It’s just so lovely and peaceful down by the water too!!

What’s the last museum you’ve been to or what museum would you like to visit next? Feel free to give ya gal a cheeky like (and follow if you haven’t already) and thank you so much for reading!