This morning’s goal was to get to the Palace of the Holyroodhouse by 9:30 when it opened so we would have enough time there to make our train to St. Andrews by noon. We made it with an hour to spare. The Palace is the official Royal residence in Scotland. The Queen spends a week here each year. There was an audio guided tour that was interesting and many of the rooms were cool. The Palace plays an important part in Mary, Queen of Scots history so information about her life played a prominent role. There are ruins of an abbey connected to the Palace but it was closed for falling masonry. That was a bummer because it looked like it would be cool to check out. Since we had a little time before the train, we walked up the Royal Mile and then headed to the train station.

The train ride to St. Andrews was quite picturesque. We rode along the water of the Firth of Forth for much of the trip. The train did not go straight to St. Andrews so we had to get off at a town about 10 miles away and take a bus. We got to St. Andrews around 1:30. We then walked down to the beach and met Ellie’s friend, Chloe, there. The beach is also where the 18th hole of the Old Course (the most famous British Open course) is located. I am not a huge golf fan, but that was pretty cool to see. We met up with Chloe and we spent a good part of the afternoon walking around St. Andrews. There are sand dunes, castle and cathedral ruins, the university campus, the town streets, and lots of beautiful views. The weather was cool and windy, but it did not rain. I learned that the beach running scene from “Chariots of Fire” was film on that beach, so of course I had to recreate that. I just needed the theme song. Around 4:30 we were hungry so we went to cafe for tea and scones. We all had huge scones with clotted crème and they were delicious! After tea time we walked around some more and ended up having dinner at a Neapolitan pizza place. The pizza was huge and Ellie and I were full. After dinner we walked back to the bus station, said goodbye to Chloe, and got the bus back to the train that took us back to Edinburgh. It was a full and fun day.