Scotland - Day Twenty Five - Crail to St Andrews
- cazphillips2
- Dec 16, 2024
- 5 min read
It’s day 25 -and it’s an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Well it would be, all we need is a couple more zeros on the bank balance and we’ve got this. The famous bit; not so much. Really it’s only where we’re staying tonight, but I’ll get to that later.
Now, I apologise in advance, it’s been a funny old itinerary today, looping back down, past where we started, bit of a corkscrew, under, over and round again. Like going on a bear hunt without any bears. Ok, not quite that bad, but there’s a method to our madness. Basically, the method was simply that I’d kind of got us from Edinburgh, down to the borders, up the West Coast to the top and then down the East. What I hadn’t got us to, was where I wanted us to stay towards the end.
We started the day by waving au revoir to Kinghorn and heading in the opposite direction to where we would end the day. And not for the first time. Because, why wouldn’t you? Our first stop was Crail because I wanted to visit and because the Favourite Husband would need coffee by then. We stopped at the Crail Harbour Art Gallery and Cafe which would be easy to miss. It’s a converted little cottage with an outside seating area overlooking the water. Inside is also a lovely gift shop, which the Favourite Husband hurriedly ushered me through before I could buy anything. I liked Crail, it’s so pretty. The Favourite Husband for some reason, wasn’t a fan. He’s so fussy. It’s nothing short of a miracle he likes me. Crail Harbour is actually a 16th century harbour, really sheltered and found by following the beautiful cobbled streets down towards the harbour. The area is known as the East Neuk of Fife and is on the Fife coastal trail.
From Crail it was off to a very short walk en route before heading to St. Andrews. We weren’t convinced by the walk. It was at a small place called Dunido Den. It’s down behind the church and it’s an old pagan Druid’s place of worship, but it also rumoured to house fairies. I didn’t hate it, the Favourite Husband thought it “cold” so we’ll leave it there. It might be worth a visit if that’s your thing, but I don’t think I’d bother again.
The word vista is back and so, by default therefore, is vistacular. Alarmingly this was accompanied by the Favourite Husband announcing he wanted to “feel it, taste it, breathe it” which he just managed to make sound marginally unclean. So I told him to stop talking and thankfully he did.
St. Andrews was a “nice to visit” not a “must see” on our itinerary. I would now go back and change that. It’s bloody lovely. There’s literally an endless supply of things of beauty to see, places to visit, shops to pop into, cafes and restaurants, pubs and bars. Dammit I wish we’d stayed here. We both loved it. Absolute highlight was popping into St Salvator Chapel, one of the two chapels linked to the university. It is a stunning example of Gothic architecture, dating to 1450. An American lady of a certain age starting chatting up the Favourite Husband. He appeared slightly terrified, which provided great amusement to me. Their small tour group left as some students arrived for singing practise. It wasn’t choir, it was definitely Glee Club. I wanted to stay, the Favourite Husband told me I could probably cut in, but we didn’t, we put our grown up hats on. But we did have the absolute privilege of hearing them just warming up and it was a joy.
St Andrews boasts a great selection of shops and cafes and everything in between. Not to mention the University, the “Old Town,” the beach, the golf club. it also has a castle (ruins) and the cathedral. The cathedral is majestic, definitely the best cathedral ruin we have explored. It’s huge and you get a very real sense of how it would have been in the day.
I say “absolute highlight” for St Salvatore Chapel, but actually we both picked the cathedral ruins as the best bit of the day. St Andrews was a treat, if I could go back in time and make good decisions, I’d have chosen to go to University here. (Or Uni full stop.) But no, here we are, old, uneducated and perfectly content. We swung into the members only parking to photograph the old course at the gold club, it was easy to be mistaken for members/professionals with the “Porsche.”
From here we had two choices. Stirling Castle or head straight to our (very expensive - it’s our anniversary again) refuge for the night. Because of my zigging when I should be zagging, it didn’t really matter; as we could do the castle tomorrow. So we left St Andrews reluctantly and headed back towards Loch Lomond.
We drove past a promising looking sign for Clackmannashire, underneath which read “More than you can imagine.” Bold. I read it out loud to the Favourite Husband to which his response was “At this moment in time, all I can imagine is a toilet.” So that killed the brief moment of optimism.
And then after a couple of wrong turns and a full-on argument with Miss Leading the sat nav, we arrived at our accommodation for the night. We were staying at, drum roll please, Cameron House - Loch Lomond. I think it’s fair to say, I’ve saved the best til last. Well our favourite anyway. You just knew upon arrival that this was a little bit special. It was pouring with rain and it’s the type of establishment that a concierge comes out and meets you with an umbrella and gets your bags and takes your car. Not “takes” it like might happen at a red light in South London; valet parking my friends, valet parking. Definitely made to feel like a rock star, albeit an ageing one. The room was just lovely and it was one of the cheaper ones as by now the account was pretty lean. The champagne we’d ordered was there, on ice, with 2 flutes. And most importantly, the football was on the telly! The facilities are outstanding, there’s a couple of bars, restaurants, a spa, a pool, a shop etc. All set on the banks of the Loch. It’s heaven. Dinner was nice, but it wasn’t our highest rated meal of the holiday. It’s fair to say that I didn’t want to leave. One night wasn’t enough, despite what the bank manager says.
It really feels like the end of the trip is nigh and we are both sad about that. We were talking about it over dinner, it’s been such a great time. The weather has been kind to us, the “Porsche” has been a trusty steed and we have witnessed some of the most incredible and special delights anyone could wish for. Plus, we haven’t killed each other, so that’s definitely good.
St Andrews Cathedral
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