Edinburgh 27 September

Today we focused on going out of the city into the countryside, and to do that we signed up for a day trip to St. Andrews with Rabbie's Tours. This particular tour would take us to the fishing village of Anstruther on the North Sea then up to St. Andrews where we would spend the bulk of our time. From St. Andrews we would go to Falkland and the head back to Edinburgh. The tour was scheduled to last about 8-and-a-half hours, which proved to be about accurate.

The tour groups -- there were three of us -- congregated outside Rabbie's Cafe on Princes Street and at just about half past nine were ushered to our waiting bus vans.

After an hour and a half or so we pulled into the quaint old fishing village of Anstruther where public restrooms were available as were a few lovely views of the harbor and town. The town also boasted a kebab joint and a Turkish barber.

From Anstruther we drove up the coast to St. Andrews where we left the bus near the British Golf Museum. The Dunhill Golf Classic was underway but the inclement weather had us doubting whether anyone was playing. The important thing was were weren't scheduled to play so we could just enjoy the town. And, as our guide Martin said, if people stopped playing golf in Scotland due to the weather, people in Scotland would never play golf.

So we strolled up Scores Street to the ruins of the St. Andrews castle and from there to yet another set of ruins, but this time it was the St. Andrews Cathedral.

side entrance to the castle

view of the ancient cathedral from the castle

From the castle it was less than five minutes -- in the rain mind you -- to the cathedral. It's possible to climb to the top of the tower but we skipped that portion, thank you. Still, the little museum inside the visitor center held a wealth of old tombstones that had been recovered and preserved from the very earliest burials here.

while this wasn't a terribly old burial it nonetheless had a wonderfully poignant inscription

lots of the burials were blocked off because of unstable ground

inside the museum - reportedly St. Andrew's sarcophagus

After leaving the cathedral we walked up Market St. to find a place for lunch and opted for Nando's, a chain specializing in grilled chicken.

Sadly, the rain was still falling quite heavily by the time we got back to the bus and arrived in Falkland. Equally unfortunate, however, was the Falkland palace turned out to be a waste of time. Poor signage, confusing layout and an ambiguity over which particular century fell into which part of the palace -- much of it renovated and/or recreated elsewhere on the property -- made this a very perplexing place to spend any time.

But we were soon back on the bus and heading south once again to Edinburgh. Our guide kindly stopped at a lovely overlook on the south side of the River Forth to let us take some wonderful photos of the bridges, both the new Queensferry Bridge and the older Forth Road Bridge, the latter heavily restricted to most traffic because of problems with the infrastructure.

Near St. Cuthbert's kirkyard along Princes St. we caught sight of a bit of street graffiti that seems to sum up the state of things in at least three countries:

Tomorrow it's time to meet up with Richard and Pauline for the drive back to St. Albans. Don't click around!