THE homes of golf, harbours and haddocks...
Apologies, massive photo day today. Yep, we got a bit overboard there...
We slept well and headed down to our free breakfast around 7.30am where we had cereal, toast and an offer of a full Scottish breakfast. We chose a cut down version because "the full" sounded ridiculously too much (but probably fine for a farmer who already worked physically for 3 hours). Seriously, it included eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, black pudding, hash brown, potato scone, grilled tomato and toast. What we had was still plenty and very nice, but definitely not all of that.
Faded glory hotels are popular with us and The Greenside Hotel definitely qualifies, with windows that don't stay open by themselves. Ours is held open by a bible and this window in the dining room with a coffee mug.
As rain was predicted, we chose to explore the Fife coast, including St. Andrews, instead of hiking. Good move it turned out.
We realized that not everybody may know where is Leslie, i.e. the blue dot adjacent to Glenrothes. You will also find Berwick-Upon-Tweed where we stayed 2 nights ago in the lower right corner, today's destinations of St Andrews and Anstruther by the coast towards Dundee, Edinburgh in the center and Glasgow to the far left.
Now back to regular programming.
St. Andrews is an important Scottish town historically, once with the largest cathedral in Scotland (now in ruins) and a playground of Scottish royalty, still with the third oldest university in UK, and THE home of golf.
We arrived early and started our wandering before the rain and tour groups came (we tried to avoid both). The board below show an outline of the peninsular including the harbour area.
We ended up walking through and see most of St Andrews attractions, about 6km.
The next board included a summary of key happenings at St Andrews including the Reformation 500 years ago, which resulted in some Protestant preachers being burned for heresy, and some witches being tried. The witch treatment reminded us of Monty Python's Holy Grail - they would fling the "witches" off a cliff into the sea and if they drowned they were innocent and if they survived they were witches, retrieved from the ocean and burned at the stake. Hmm...
While the rain held off we headed to "golf Mecca"... The Old Course at St Andrews. Golf was said to have started here in the 15th century. It may be hard to see on this map but the old course is marked as the long skinny dark green strip in the middle. It is surrounded by 3 other courses nowadays. In the background is the clubhouse for the Royal & Ancient golf club, established 1754, which sets the rules for golf in all countries except for Mexico and USA.
The logo of the St Andrews Golf Club.
Regular weekend golfers hitting off on the Old Course - albeit no Jack Nicklaus nor Tiger Woods.
The Old Course has a right of way for walkers but of course you would be silly to walk there on any day except on a Sunday when golf is not played. Otherwise you could spend the whole time listening for "fore". But you can...
The obligatory self portrait at this iconic location.
Mam, members only... Can't you bloody read...?
The "starter office" had these new golf rules for the course posted on the window due to the British Women's Open being set up here. Hence tents and TV towers are currently on the course - aka Temporary Immovable Obstacles or TIOs. They made up a TLA for that (which stands for Three Letter Acronym for anybody who... Nah, nobody would not know that).
The Scottish are great at choosing obvious names for things...
We passed the course and wandered down to the lovely long beach you can see from the course. This sign could have been from an Aussie - a health initiative promoting "Bums Off Seats". The Scots are also great at calling a spade a bloody spade.
Why is Hans running? Perhaps you can hear the Chariots of Fire theme in the background... Yep, it was filmed at this beach. Nice re-enactment by Hans. Di made him do it 3 times...or was that Di's inadequate photography skills on action photos? Have a guess...
This ugly building is a public WC and the photo is of Di holding up an Admission Ticket. Ok, we know some places you have to pay 30P or 50P but then to get a purple ticket like a carnival ride? That was a new one for us.
A permanent notice - just in case... The toilets are closed due to "staff absence" and they "apologize for any inconvenience" because of that. Are you kidding? We just came here for sheer fun, right?
We wandered back onto the Main Street of town and found a coffee shop called Bibi's just as a sprinkling of rain stated. We chose our hot drinks from the menu - Viennese Coffee for Di and a large "Bibi's Ultimate Hot Chocolate" for Hans.
Another example of "over the top" in Scottish dining - "Bibi's Ultimate Hot Chocolate" was a huge cup, 3/4 filled with drink, then a layer of say 20 mini marshmallows, then a pile of cream, topped off with a range of chocolates set into the cream. Hans soldiered through it...a decent sugar fix to keep him going. Very decent.
With a light rain continuing we wandered towards St Andrew's University, celebrating their 600th year this year 2013. Only Oxford and Cambridge universities are older in the UK.
St Andrews University is not a big place but is lovely. This seemed to be the main quadrangle.
This woman did not make it in the front doors...
Some parts of the University are located right on the edge of the peninsular, but still in older buildings.
We laughed at this - the left door is the School of Moral Philosophy, the right door is the School of Logic and Metaphysics. Left brain, right brain perhaps...
We figured that this was student accommodation...not quite the same refined gardens we had seen to date and discarded shopping trolleys!!?? What would the good people think? BTW, this dwelling is attached to another to the right and that dwelling was for sale. The poor people there probably had enough.
Heading south east along the St Andrews peninsular you reach the ruins of a castle, referred to as... St Andrews Castle. We did not go in because so we can't tell you which King was here.
Great view... And Hans looks good too. Nice colour co-ordination.
Despite this being the North Sea, and it being windy, the sea seemed quite tranquil (for now).
Even the fishing boats were having a smooth ride, followed by the usual beggars...
Onto the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral which was destroyed during the Reformation (where Catholicism was kicked out and Protestant became the official religion of Scotland). The cathedral was once the largest in Scotland.
Yep, the rain set in but somehow that seemed appropriate for the cemetery...and in case you don't recognize her under all those layers - that's Di in in blue.
The rain eased off and we always like working harbour areas so we wandered down to the pier.
This apparently was constructed with some of the stones from the castle ruins. In the background are the cathedrals ruins.
The steps were slippery and the handrail rusty - further back Hans... Hmm...
Looking back towards St. Andrews with the castle ruins on the far right.
Look no hands ...or is Hans the King of the World? No, no, a very poor Titanic impersonation.
St Andrews has a small charming harbour with some local boats returning. Not many and nothing here seemed to be truly commercial - more a hobby or a basic living.
The small brown sign indicates that this is part of the Fife Coastal Path - a track running 188kms along the coast here. Yep, Hans the Hiker is always keen...
One of the fishing boats were unloading a bucket of mackerel and some lobsters. The majority of lobsters were underneath brown carpet in the yellow container - best guess maybe 50 in total. Still for 2 guys this did not seem to be a profitable outing. Not quite Maine standards.
The rain returned and it was after 12 so we headed back to our car, jumped in dripping, and took a leisurely drive down the coast. This is a view of the coast at Crail (we cheated, the photo was taken from inside the car - it was raining hard outside).
We reached Anstruther at 1pm, perfect timing for lunch. This town was a deliberate choice as it was promoted as the town with the best Fish & Chips in the UK. It was pretty easy to find the place - lots of signage about their awards. Hans was looking forward to the experience.
And it is good karma when you need to wait with all the other punters. We were told it was worth the wait...and it only took about 10 minutes.
Their mascot kept us company while we waited.
The menu listed all their awards - some as recent 2012 from EatScotland, consistently awarded since 2009, including the big award of "UK Fish & Chip shop of the year" in 2008/9.
Hans ordered the traditional Haddock and Chips, whilst Di ordered Smoked Haddock Fish Cakes and Mushy Peas. Di's fish cakes were fantastic. Hans also thought his meal was very good but he still voted his favourite fish & chips coming from the BBC restaurant at Falmouth, Massachusetts. Huge servings (again), including tea and bread and it still cost less than £17 for two. We are finding Scottish food reasonably priced.
Anstruther seemed more of a port town than St. Andrews with more commercial activity occurring right beside the little harbour (to the left of Di).
Looking beyond the habour light and wall is the start of the Firth of Forth (looking towards England). It was obvious the rain was brewing again.
And boy does the weather change fast here. We took this photo and started to hustle back to the car but within 3 minutes the rain and wind belted us...
...Then by the time we got back to the car the rain had stopped. Literally within 10 minutes.
It was after 3pm and we thought it was enough for one day - we got wet twice - so time to head home. On the way we spotted an Aldi (woohoo) and bought a few supplies to keep us going for dinner in our room and also for the next few days, including some alcohol. Hans spotted Aldi selling his local favourite Caesar Augustus Hybrid IPA. Di wanted more of a nightcap so bought a cheap Port. Brilliant (our adopted term which sounds somewhat authentic if we roll the R).
After an hour back in the room Hans got itchy feet and headed out to walk a local path we could see from our window. Di blogged.
Local sign and the ever present dark clouds.
This "box" was were we stayed at The Greenside Hotel. Our room is the fourth from the left, with the window open thanks to the Bible...
An up-close photo of the view from our room - they cut the hay yesterday.
Part of Leslie's local walking paths from a distance...
...and closer up.
Countryside Leslie photography. It just looked good.
Back to the Greenside Hotel after the nice walk.
We then decided that a bath each would not be out of place. Hans' bath was accompanied by a bottle of Caesar Augustus hybrid beer and Di's with a glass Clare Valley Cab Sav but from a label yet again that we had never heard about.
Dinner was stuff in the room that we bought from Aldi, gotta love them. Salmon, salami, cheese...
The rain started again, then stopped again, which we expect will be the pattern all night. We are quickly adapting to Scotland's weather and the need to be prepared - no guessing from the skies, just carry everything you might need, some water resistant jacket and umbrella are mandatory for going out.
And now it is good night from us.
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