Stirling via St. Andrews and Anstruther

Wednesday, 25 September 2019

Our B&B room is very small, but we were able to get a good night sleep.  Even though it is a Bed & Breakfast, the breakfast is not included in the price and they want £15 per person, so we decided against it.  Today we have a Rick Steves walking tour of St. Andrews to follow, so we will just grab something to eat along the way.

The walk starts at "The Old Course"of the St. Andrews Golf Course where golf has been played since the 15th century, and is considered the oldest course in the world.

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) is the oldest and most prestigious golf clubs in the world, founded in 1754.  It sits close to the 18th green as can be seen in the second photo.

Just across the street from the 18th green and the R&A golf club is the Hamilton Grand.  It is rumored that Samuel L. Jackson has an apartment here.

We continued our walk and was about to arrive at St. Andrews University, but first we passed this ridiculous name for a street.

Right in front of the gateway into the campus is the initials "PH".  This is where Patrick Hamilton, a student at the university, was burned at the stake on 29 February 1528 at the age of 24.  He was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death for teaching Lutheran doctrines he had learned from Martin Luther.  This made him the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation.

According to student legend, if you step on the initials, you will fail your exams.

We entered under the clock tower into this beautiful quad surrounded by building dating back to the 1400's.

Here is a crazy student tradition as stated in Wikipedia "When wearing their traditional red gowns, students in each year may be identified according to the way they wear their gowns. In the first year, the gown is worn on the shoulders, in the second year it is worn slightly off the shoulders. In the third year arts students wear their gowns off their left shoulders, and science students off their right shoulders. Finally, fourth years wear their gowns right down to their elbows, ready to shed their scarlet gowns for the black graduation gown."

We were lucky enough to visit the campus while students were providing tours, so we saw this gown wearing tradition.

Here is the campus chapel that dates back to 1450.  This is where the famous alums Prince William and Kate Middletown wed.

We left the campus and walked by the ruins of St. Andrews castle that was destroyed during the Scottish Reformation.

Next came the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral built in 1158 and yet another casualty of the Scottish Reformation.

After the walk we were supposed to play a round of putting at the putting greens that are open to the public, but I misread the hours and we missed it. So, we walked back to the 18th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews to have one more look.

This morning when we were there, we noticed that they were setting up for the Alfred Dunhill Championship that begins tomorrow.

When we looked up to the tee area, we noticed camera around someone getting ready to drive.  We figured it was someone famous so we took a few photos.  We found out later that it was Jon Rahm, a professional golfer.  I guess they are playing a practice round today.

The next player on the tee was Rory McIlroy.

After watching these pros hit a few balls we were ready to get on the road.  The guidebook mentioned a town called Anstruther with a great fish and chips place.  Come to think of it, we met a couple at a bar and they mentioned this same place, so we drove the 45 minutes to Anstruther and walked around the harbor some.

We were finally ready to try the fish and chips, so we headed to Anstruther Fish Bar.  They even told us what fishing boat caught today's fish.

I have to tell you, the fish was really delicious. By this point we have eaten fish and chips multiple times, and this was definitely one of the best.

After eating, we decided to walk around town a little to work off some of the grease we just digested.  This town really is beautiful.

We got back to the car and drove 2 hours to Stirling.  After getting settled into our apartment we headed into town for dinner.  Oh, did I mention that today is Tim and my 10th anniversary!   Tim picked a really nice place, but when we got there they were booked, so we walked around looking for another place to eat.  We settled on an oriental restaurant that had a little of everything from Japanese to Chinese to Thai to Korean.  We decided to order a bottle of wine and eat sushi for dinner.

After a nice dinner we went back to the apartment and called it a night.  We are in Stirling for two nights, so tomorrow morning we can relax a bit and not rush to get ready and checkout.  That is a nice thing.