Dundee is ‘a bridge to the past and path to the future’

ASK the average Dundonian to name a famous travel guidebook and more likely than not they’ll say Lonely Planet.

It is the world’s biggest publisher of guidebooks and, for many, the final word in tourist advice.

Following their first guide, 1973s Across Asia on the Cheap, founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler have recruited writers to share their knowledge of the world’s travel hotspots – including Dundee.

The company has developed a reputation for telling it like it is – and an entry on the City of Discovery, published in 1999, is no different.

“Poor Dundee,” it read. “This grey city is an unfortunate example of the worst of 1960s and 70s town planning – ugly blocks of flats and office buildings joined by unsightly concrete walkways.

“Once, there were more millionaires per head in Dundee than anywhere in Britain. Today it has the highest rate of unemployment in