Before coming to Scotland, I’d never heard of Dundee. It is Scotland’s fourth largest city (after Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen), a UNESCO City of Design, and boasts a couple of sights that are truly worthy of planning a day around. And yet for me, and I’m guessing for most Americans, the mention of Dundee would have been greeted by a blank stare.

But with one of A’s friends living there and it being only about an hour and a half by train or bus from our base in Edinburgh, a day in Dundee made for a nice little Sunday side trip. And I’ll tell you something. Despite having never heard of the place before planning a day there, I really liked it, and found myself even wanting to come back to see the things I missed.

Dundee was founded in the eleventh century, becoming a Burgh (city with a Scottish royal charter) in 1191. Located on the Firth of Tay, it has historically had an economy based on two things: textiles and the sea.

At the McManus, Dundee’s main city museum – the building itself was constructed as a memorial to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband – one can learn about the history of the city and its rise. With its harbor along the firth, shipbuilding was a major industry here for centuries. Dundee built wooden sailing ships and steamers, and was one of the most important centers for this in Britain. The museum contains some models of ships constructed here, and an explanation of the many companies that built them through the early 20th century, when the call for wooden ships went away.

Perhaps the most economically important ships built in Dundee were whalers. Dundee was the center of commercial whaling on the North Sea. That, in turn, powered the city’s largest industry: textiles. Specifically, jute.

Jute is a coarse fiber produced by plants. It is cheap to produce, second only to cotton among plant-based fibers, and used for things ranging from rope to burlap sacks. The fibers, however, are tough to work with, needing to be softened in order to weave. That’s where whale oil came in traditionally (not today). The oil was used to make the jute fibers pliable enough to easily work with, and with Dundee being a whaling center, it also became a jute mecca. In 1910, more than 40% of the city’s workforce was employed in the jute industry, dropping to 20% by 1950, and effectively zero today. (One can learn about the jute industry at the Verdant Works Museum, but I didn’t get there. See what I mean about needing to come back?)

So shipbuilding, whaling, and jute textiles had all vanished from Dundee by the middle of the twentieth century. So if ever a city needed to reinvent itself, this was it.

That new chapter came in the form of tech, design, and tourism. Did you know that the classic computer game Lemmings was made in Dundee? What about Grand Theft Auto? Or Timex watches? Small things like these add up, and today, Dundee has a reputation for being a city of innovation, of retail, and of design. That last one is best seen in the V&A Dundee.

Opened in 2018, the Victoria and Albert Dundee is the only branch of the mighty landmark museum outside of London. The building is itself a landmark of design, resembling a ship from some angles, and the cliffs of western Scotland from others. It is modern, open, and an ode to Scottish design, ranging from fashion to architecture.

As with the V&A in London, this is a free museum, although rotating exhibitions do have an entrance fee. For me, the easy highlight is a replica of a portion of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Oak Room. (Click here to read about this most famous of Glasgow’s architects.)

The V&A is part of a more than £1 billion investment in Dundee’s waterfront. It is a centerpiece of what has become a remarkably terrific place for visitors – and the central tourism hub for the city – and for locals, with a long firth-fronting promenade connecting the sights. What was once the main city quay is now home to a water park (the kids doing a floating obstacle course looked like they were having a blast) and the HMS Unicorn, a frigate launched in the 1820s.

The Unicorn is one of the few surviving fully intact warships from the period, although you’ll notice something funny about her. She has no masts, rather sporting a roof reminiscent of a hat. This isn’t a mistake. Just as Unicorn was built, the naval component of the Napoleonic Wars ended, so the rigging and masts were never finished, and it was repurposed as a sort of floating powder storage facility. The coolest feature is the unicorn on the bow.

The Unicorn, however, is not the most iconic ship that Dundee boasts. That honor clearly belongs to RRS Discovery. Discovery was one of the last wooden ships to be built in Dundee, launching in 1901 for a single purpose: exploring Antarctica. For the next three years, her crew, captained by Robert Falcon Scott (with Ernest Shackleton as third lieutenant, fascinatingly), would carry out scientific research in Antarctica, being the first such mission in history.

The ship itself is only a small portion of the Discovery Point Museum, which talks about the expedition, subsequent voyages, exploration in general, and the Dundee shipbuilding industry. It contains relics from Discovery, explanations of the designs (built in wood to be able to better expand in the frozen waters, a sailing ship but with a backup coal fired steam engine, and more), and detailed accounts of some of the more interesting aspects of the voyage, like nearly having to abandon the ship when December thaws in 1904 weren’t looking like enough to free Discovery from the ice and the crew had to blast a channel through.

And of course, visitors can explore much of the ship. Signage is good, although stairways are steep and narrow, guiding eager learners like me through the terribly uncomfortable life it must have been for those aboard Discovery. In winter, with the engines off – as the ship was iced in – icicles would form on the bunks. Furs used to keep warm would never fully dry, leading to a constant musty smell. And yet meals in the officers’ wardroom were always formal, with full dress uniform required.

I end my visit by ringing the bell onboard, to have a worker tell me that inside the bell are the names of all of Captain Scott’s descendants, who are baptized inside of it on the ship. (The captain died trying to reach the South Pole on a later expedition, but had one son by that time, hence the continuation of the line.)

The ringing of the bell is a reminder that while Dundee is important historically, it is also a city alive and vibrant today. One needs only walk the thriving Victorian center to see that, passing fascinating sculptures all over along the way.

I am so happy that fortune and chance brought me to Dundee, Scotland. I can only hope your life brings you here, as well. You will not regret learning about this truly undiscovered (by American tourists, anyway) gem.

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