Pitlochry to St. Andrews

 October 13

The Old Mill Inn was a great spot in Pitlochry. We had a nice included breakfast - eggs Benedict and eggs florentine for us. We exchanged some old pound notes for new money. I shopped at a store I had seen the evening before and by 10:30 we were on our way. We tried to tour Dewars but the first tour wasn’t until noon, so we visited their museum and shop instead. On our way to St Andrews, we exited for gas and got turned around on our way back onto the highway causing us to backtrack quite a way. Then later we missed a roundabout exit and pulled into a gas station to fill up a low tire. The clerk said just go up to the next village and circle back. Oddly, the trip through that village took us through the middle of someone’s farm on a very narrow country road for what seemed like miles. It was very strange. But we finally made it back to the highway. We learned that one wrong turn can really cost you! We had a 1:30 reservation for lunch and we didn’t arrive until 2. 







Lunch at St Andrews 

We walked around St Andrews and eventually made it to our AirBnb, Stravithe Castle! A very old restored home. 

Practice putting green goes forever


Iconic building on the St Andrews old course

The remains of St Andrews cathedral 

St Andrews on the North Sea

The drive up to the castle

This is the back of the house

Our room - very spacious and the grounds are beautiful 

Tomorrow we head back to Edinburgh and take a train to London. 

Boring blog this day, but we’re looking forward to the next half of our trip in England! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anacapri and Marina Piccola

Image
 October 5, 2024 We awoke to our first breakfast here at Aldarogi. Scrambled eggs, prosciutto, cheese, tomatoes and croissants. And a great cappuccino!  We then headed up the exhausting climb to Capri (143 bpm). Which takes about 10 minutes.  It rained hard overnight, but no rain is expected today! I was awake from midnight to about 4 and loved our view of the Italy coastline from our room. It just sparkled! We grabbed a bus to Anacapri (20 minutes of hairpin turns) and were deposited in the main Piazza. We walked a little, grabbing a map from a vendor and then made our way to the chairlift.  Once at the top, we had another coffee and took in the panoramic views from there.  Back down again we explored Anacapri and I bought some tiles for our eventual new home at 309 W. 19th Avenue. We ate lunch at an off-the-beaten-path trattoria and had a delicious experience! Ravioli Caprese and a Caprese Salad. So fresh and good! After lunch we visited the nearby church and it’s beautiful mosaic fl
Read more

Naples and Catania

Image
 October 9, 2024 This morning we packed and checked out (leaving our bags for them to hold) while we went out to explore once more. We took the metro to the Municipal area and palazzo Reale (royal palace) but alas it is closed. Instead we visited the iconic castle by the port, Castle Nuovi, built in the 1279 as a palace for the french king, Charles I, and took a tour.  In the middle of our tour I got a text from EasyJet reminding us of our flight at 2:45. We thought it was at 3:45! Gasp! 🫢 so we left the tour and had to hike it back to the metro and then hike from there to our hotel. As we were arriving at our hotel, a cab was dropping someone else off so we had her wait while we grabbed our luggage at the front desk. We made it to the airport in enough time to sit down for a beer and a light lunch before heading to our gate.  Our flight ended up being delayed due to cell service interruption and so we ended up leaving a little more than an hour later. Ciao Napoli!  Finally in Catania
Read more

Siracusa and Ortigia

Image
 October 12, 2024 Breakfast with Mt. Etna Our hotel Byssus Suites is in Siracusa but wasn’t ready when we arrived. The drive from Acireale was about 1.5 hours. The hotel took our luggage and parked our car. Ortigia is an island and mostly pedestrian, so we walked there (about 15 minutes) to look around. They have a massive farmers market and we walked around and ducked into a small restaurant just behind a fruit merchant who regularly started hawking. Ortigia farmers market Archemedes fountain The beautiful old lanes of Ortigia The Duomo - inside is the left arm of Santa Lucia (Sicily’s patron saint) Plumeria trees line the streets in Siracusa. Another tree seen often looks like ficus trees but the trunks are massive!  Interesting ending machine!  We had a nice dinner at Pourquoi Pas. Although in Sicily the food is mostly seafood, I opted for a pork dish this time. The roasted cabbage is soooo good! I need to try this at home! Our room is very spacious and high quality!  Tomorrow we wi
Read more