A SCOTTISH city has been crowned the most cultured in the UK.
Aberdeen has earned the title thanks to its residents travelling to the most cultured places in Europe, compared to the rest of the UK's travel trends.
Edinburgh took third place, according to the study by Club Med, Culture Vultures which compared the UK’s travel behaviour for visiting the 43 most popular cultural destinations in Europe.
People from Glasgow were the third most likely to take cultural breaks.
Using a range of data, the research analysed the number of museums, landmarks and top restaurants in each location to uncover which destinations have the highest proportion of culture on offer, comparing this with air travel data from the UK’s most popular airports.
Aberdeen is known for its museums, galleries and arts but it appears that its residents enjoy travelling to high culture locations across the continent.
Nearly three in 10 trips (28%) from Aberdeen Airport were to cultural hotspots last year, with more than 2.5 million passengers heading to the city’s top-five most popular destinations Amsterdam, Stavanger, Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin.
Heathrow takes second on the list with 27% of those serviced by the airport travelling to top cultural destinations, while Edinburgh has just under a quarter (23%) of its passengers visiting these cities of culture along with Gatwick which also has 23%.
Fifth place on the list goes to Manchester with more than two in 10 (21%) from the city hopping on a plane for a cultural trip, Luton and Southampton follow next with both seeing 16% of its residents visiting Europe’s top offerings, with Birmingham on 15 per cent, alongside Southend (14%) and Newcastle (13%) making up the top 10.
The locations where people are least likely to look go on cultural breaks are Cardiff (11%), Glasgow (9%), Leeds Bradford (9%), East Midlands (7%) and Liverpool (6%).
Nathalie Drew, marketing director for Northern Europe at Club Med, said: “After people have spent so long in lockdown it’s understandable that they will want to make the most of their trips when they get the freedom to travel again.
“These results may come as a surprise to some, but it shows how keen the UK is for culture abroad as well as travel in general.”
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