The Great Adventure Part Five

Continuing with the Edinburgh portion of the trip, we booked an all day bus trip to the ancient golf course of St. Andrews and through the fishing villages of Fife. It was a rainy day so we thought a bus tour would be good.

We started out by traversing Edinburgh to pick up all the other passengers. I was glad that we weren't driving! Rain, narrow streets, construction... and driving on the left.

We headed out of town and stopped to photograph the new Queensferry bridge. It was opened in August (by the Queen!) and is the longest suspension bridge in the world and Britain's tallest. Unfortunately, the weather was still misty and we couldn't get a clear view across it.

The excitement here, at least for me, was locking myself into a toilet stall during our brief stop here. My motto, "never pass up a restroom," could have spelled disaster. Luckily I had my backpack with me with a nail clipper inside and I was able to MacGyver the lock open with the file part.

The next stop was Dunfermline, where we visited the Abbey, founded in 1072. There are a lot of old churches in The UK, many having been the scenes of conflict and destruction.

Another interesting thing about this town is that it was the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, and the original Carnegie library is here. We looked in there and the museum briefly and they were great. One of the rare book collections in the library:

Then we drove farther up the coast and stopped in a little fishing village called Anstruther. It was a picturesque little place.

The highlight of the journey came next. Pat had been talking about going to St. Andrews since we mentioned Scotland as a destination. It's the home of Scotland's first university, founded in 1413, there are castle ruins nearby, and there is the Old Course, widely known as the home of golf. It's a beautiful course, right on the sea. The beach here is the one used in "Chariots of Fire" and is impressive even on a cold day.

Most golfers will be able to identify the landmark Swilcan Bridge at the 18th hole. While we were waiting for golfers to pass by so we could stand on it, we had to wait longer while the caddy took photos of all of them on the bridge, too.

The University buildings were very picturesque, and the ruined castle was a ruined castle. 😉

The next day we visited Edinburgh Castle, which sits high on a hill overlooking the city. It's an impressive structure indeed, too full of Scottish military history for us to absorb. There has been a royal castle on the site from at least the 12th century and the site was a royal residence until 1633. By the 17th century it was principally used as a military barracks with a large garrison. It was besieged many times in its long history.

One of the cannons is fired every day at 1:00. We didn't stay for that.

The last day we spent at the Royal Botanic Garden before catching our train to England. It is a massive garden and so impressive, even slightly past peak season. We were disappointed that the glass houses were closed for renovation, but there still was plenty to see.