We had just enough time on our super fast tour of Scotland to stop in at St Andrews, although I knew the town was famous for it’s university, apparently the third oldest in the English-speaking world, I was surprised at how pretty the rest of the town was.
We started our tour at the remains of the cathedral, at one time this was Scotland’s largest building, although little remains of what was once such a grand building after it was ransacked by a Protestant mob in 1559.
Despite the size of the original building, which was finished in 1318, very few of the stones remain as they were taken over the centuries to build the local houses. As we walked around the area, you could notice odd pieces of decorative stone from the cathedral embedded in the walls of houses or garden walls.
From the remains of the cathedral it was just a short walk to the coast where a pretty clifftop path gave us views over the bay to the remains of St Andrews Castle. The castle was built in 1200 as the residence, prison and fortress of the bishops of the diocese.
After the Reformation in Scotland the powers of the bishop based here were rapidly eroded until they were finally abolished by William of Orange in 1689. The castle quickly fell in to disrepair and stone from the site used elsewhere in the city.
We continued our walk around St Andrews, admiring the huge variety of buildings. With the University on a break, much of the town felt quite empty, making it feel like you were walking through a museum rather than a living town.
On our final day in Scotland we make a quick stop on our way to the airport at the town of Queensferry just outside Edinburgh. The town is located on the Firth of Forth, and from the waterfront you have a great view of the Forth Bridge.
Having heard so much about the Forth Bridge, it was great to see it in person. It is hard to gauge the scale of the bridge, which at 2,467 meters (8,094 feet) also includes the second-longest single cantilever span in the world. However we were able to wait just long enough to see a train go over the bridge, which really helped show just how huge the bridge really is.