Day 8 - Stonehaven to St Andrews

I think I mentioned this before but wow, does it ever get light here early in the morning. We were on the top floor of our B&B and had a nice window overlooking the harbour. The minus was that the top floor collected all of the heat from the building so we decided to sleep with the window swung partly open. This precluded use of the blind. The window faced east. First light is at 4:05 am. We both managed to get back to sleep once we figured out what was going on.

Last night I did an hour and halftime-lapse video of the harbour. You can see the local dinghy racing fleet return after their Wednesday night's race.

https://youtu.be/8tHMwDp_ikw

There is still some light left at 2300h!

Morning in the harbour.

We left Stonehaven and avoided the dual lane carriageway, taking the coastal road toward Dundee. The day was mostly sunny and we had some nice views of the coast.

We took one short detour to the little fishing village of Johnshaven. A very small harbour and very narrow streets!

We almost got directed down this road by the GPS! We thought better and reversed our track to the highway.

We might have tried it in one of these British SUV's.

Our next stop was at Arbroath Abbey in the Scottish town of Arbroath. It was founded in 1178 by King William the Lion for a group of Tironeansian monks from Kelso Abbey. It was consecrated in 1197 with a dedication to the deceased Saint Thomas Beckett whom the king had met at the English court. It was William's only personal foundation — he was buried before the high altar of the church in 1214. It was constructed over a 60 year period of local red sandstone.

From here we travelled through Dundee to St. Andrews arriving at around 14:00. We parked near our hotel and went for a walk around the streets bordering "The Old Course", the home of golf. It was fun watching folks finish their rounds at the clubhouse. Always an enthusiastic gallery and applause for good finishing shots!

After checking in to the Golf Hotel, about a half block from the course, we had a quick cold one in the pub then set out on a walk about town. We stopped at St Andrew's castle, some picturesque ruins on a promontory overlooking the beach at St Andrews. 

Not as spectacular as some of the other sites we have visited but it did have a preserved set of tunnels that were used when the castle was under siege in 1546. The invaders started to mine a tunnel under the fortifications into which they would bring explosives to bring down the walls. hearing the digging, the castle bound occupants started digging their own tunnel to intercept the intruders. They successfully found the mine with their counter-mine and fought back the invaders. The tunnels are still there and you can crawl through them today.

Just down the road is St Andrew's Cathedral and St Rule's Tower. Again a fabulous set of ruins. The Cathedral would have been enormous for its time. We explored the grounds until we were asked to leave as they were closing for the day. 

We continued our walk about town and found many interesting buildings in this town that is not only dominated by golf, but a beautiful university.

We went to the One Under Gastro Pub for supper, right next to the 18th hole. The final golfers were just finishing up a 21:30!