St. Andrews

Hello! Today was another great day in Scotland.  We went to St. Andrews for the day.  We got up this morning, checked out of our hotel (we're now staying in Edinburgh for the rest of our trip, but I'll explain about the hotel later) and headed to St. Andrews.  For those of you who aren't golf-y (like me) here is a little bit of history on St. Andrews.  St. Andrews is thought to be the birthplace of golf. (Nobody really knows where it originated, but most people think it was invented in St. Andrews.) The golf course is the oldest golf course in the world. (Fun fact, ever wonder why golf courses has 18 holes?  Well, it's because the St. Andrews golf course could perfectly fit 18 holes on their course.)

When we got into the city, he headed straight for the Old Golf Course and the Royal and Ancient Club House (for those of you who don't know, my Dad is a really big golf fan, and coming to St. Andrews is like a holy pilgrimage for golf lovers).  The golf course was really pretty (this is from the perspective of someone who is not very golf-y.  You could see the beach and the ocean from the 18th hole (which is the most famous hole because of it's views of the Royal and Ancient Club House).

Here is the 18th hole and the Royal and Ancient Club House. (It's called the Royal and Ancient because only men are allowed in (women can only go in 2 days out of the year, during St. Andrews Day and the Women's British Open) which makes them Royal snobs.  And all of the men in there are Ancient.  Thus, the Royal and Ancient....granted this probably isn't true, but it's my theory.)

Here is the bridge which is famous.  It's called the Swilken Bridge.

I really just wanted a picture of a golfer on the golf course.  This one was really funny because he was so bad at golf (even to my novice eyes).  This is funny because you're supposed to be a pretty good golfer in order to play at St. Andrews...well somehow this guy made the cut.

This is a picture of the town from the beach.

After the golf course, we headed to the castle and the abbey.  They castle was kind of like Urquhart, the castle we saw yesterday.  It was really cool.  Nobody was there while we were, so we had the whole castle to ourselves.

Here's the St. Andrews Castle.  It has a lot of history involving the Catholics and Protestants and the Protestant reformation. (Things about burning people at the stake and tearing things down, you know the norm for religious reformations.)

Here is the inside of the castle.  You can see my parents sitting off to the left.

After we toured the castle, we went to see the abbey.  It is the ruins from an abbey that was said to contain some of the remains of St. Andrew (nobody knows if they're still there or not).  It was really pretty.  It had a cemetery around what still remains of the abbey.

Here is the abbey.

Once we finished looking around the abbey, we got on the road to Edinburgh.  On the way to Edinburgh, we stopped in Dunfirmline, a town outside of Edinburgh, to see the abbey where Robert the Bruce is buried.  The town itself was really nice.  We didn't have a lot of time to look around it, because everything was closing, but I'd really like to go back.  

Here is the abbey.  At the top of the tower it says "King Robert the Bruce".  I thought that was really cool.

After visiting the abbey, we went to our hotel (the Edinburgh Marriott by the airport) and let me just say it's awesome.  I get free wifi and we get access to "the Executive Room" where they have free food! They have dessert type stuff, cokes, chips, coffee, etc.  I'm a happy camper.  Tomorrow we're going into Edinburgh and are going to look around the city.  It should be fun!