Scottish Tour Guide's Blog

Today, our tour schedule was changed due to impending bad weather. We brought the trip to St. Andrews forward by one day resulting in the following programme:

• Departed Inverness about 08.45am and drove round to Benromach Distillery at Forres calling in briefly at Nairn Golf Course.

Inverness Town Centre

Nairn Golf course

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Today, our tour group left Edinburgh promptly at 0915 and then headed north to commence a tour of the Fife Coast, north east of Edinburgh. After about 1 hour we reached our first destination of Lower Largo. Here is a summary of the tour progress:

• Lower Largo, a former fishing village on the coast which was the birthplace of Andrew Selkirk, the real world role model for Robinson Crusoe.

Alexander Selkirk

• St. Monans with its historic church. A service was in process during our visit but we still walked round the exterior of the church and admired the local area.

St Monans Church

• Ellie, with its sandy beach and yachts.

Ellie

• Pittenweem, still engaged in  commercial fishing with a fleet of fishing boats in port.
• Anstruther. There was an added bonus here as there were various activities in process in support of a lifeboat appeal. There was a small fleet of Porsche cars, veteran cars dating back to the 1920s, motorcycles and veteran tractors . We availed of lunch at the famous Anstruther Fish Bar.

Anstruther

Veteran Car

Anstruther Fish Bar

• Crail. A very quaint and colourful harbour where lobster fishing is still undertaken.

Crail

• St. Andrews. Here we visited the famous (ruined) Cathedral, viewed the castle, walked through town past the University buildings to arrive at the famous Old Course where we took pics at Swilken Bridge.

St Andrews Castle

• Our final destination was the famous collection of Pictish stones at Meigle in central Scotland. We were fortunate to have benefit of  a short talk/description by the local museum manager who is also studying these, mainly 9th century, carvings for a Phd.

Carved Pictish Stone

We arrive at our destination near Dunkeld about 5.45pm. Later we went into Dunkeld for dinner.

Weather today was benign and relatively sunny.

This morning we departed our lodgings in Stirling promptly to ensure we achieved our objectives, viz:

• Firstly, we drove for about  one and quarter hours to St Andrews. Purpose of this visit was to purchase genuine, St Andrews/Old Course attire for presents back home. We undertook this trip with some trepidation knowing that St Andrews would be exceptionally busy with the British Open. Despite strong police presence coupled with extensive parking restrictions we did actually this objective with surprisingly little delay notwithstanding the crowds. Parking proved surprisingly easy-or maybe we just got lucky!

18th Hole at St Andrews

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This morning I collected my guests from Letterfarm B&B, Dunkeld from where we proceeded with a tour as follows:

• First stop Meikleour where we visited and photographed the tallest hedge in the world.

Meikleour Hedge

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This evening, I am posting some images taken during a recent hike along the Fife Coastal Route from Crail to St. Andrews.

This route along the east coast of Scotland goes past:

• A coastguard station
• A World War Two gun emplacement.
• The seventh oldest golf course in the world.
• Constantine’s Cave ( possible location of the King’s death in 874 AD
• The Cambo Burn (via a bridge)
• Kinsbarns Golf Links
• Babbet Ness
• Kenly Burn
• Buddo Rock-stack of pink sandstone.
• Rock and Spindle-remains of a volcanic plug.
• Kinkell Ness
• West Sands Beach at St. Andrews.

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Today, we visited Stirling Castle, St. Andrews and the Fife Coast. St. Andrews has much to offer the visitor including:

• the famous Old Course (golf):
• Castle; and
• ruined Cathedral and associated buildings.

The video below shows the interior of the ruined cathedral which was Scotland’s largest and most magnificent church.

There is a museum which houses a collection of medieval sculptures and other relics found on the site.

The tall tower is called St. Rule’s. This was part of an earlier cathedral building, which is accessible and affords superb views from the top of the tower.

This evening I have gathered a few images of the famous Old Course at St. Andrews. This is the home of golf which has played in the locality since the 15th century.The building in the centre-left of the first image is the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

Here is an image of play in progress on the Old Course. This is a public course and not owned by the club. Local residents enjoy rights to play.

View from the Royal & Ancient

Contact Catswhiskerstours for a golfing vacation

Today, I am presenting images from a tour of St. Andrews. This is a very popular location with much to offer the visitor including: the famous Old Course (home of golf), a ruined castle and ruined cathedral. The city is located on the edge of the sea and the beaches featured in the opening scenes of the film Chariots of Fire.

Here is the famous Swilken Bridge where most visitors have their photo taken.

Here is the Old Course with Royal and ancient admin building.

Ruins of the cathedral
St Rules Church
View of castle with tide out
St. Andrews complements a trip along the quaint fishing villages of the Fife Coast. Absolutely great!