Day 2 of the birthday weekend! What better place to celebrate?
Today is a big number for Dick and he gets to select the day’s activities. Just around the corner from the Yorkston is the St. Andrews Museum. It’s free and has a nice summary history of the city. The entire building is quite impressive – especially the gorgeous ceiling cornices. Well worth a stop.
The ruins of the St. Andrews Cathedral are a short walk away and are free with our ‘Historic Scotland’ pass. A monastery was built on this ‘East Scores’ location around 700 AD. ‘Scores’ is derived from a Norse word meaning cliff top. Later the cathedral was built on the same site. It took almost 150 years to build. It was the largest church in Scotland and the seat of religious power until the reformation.
We wandered the grounds but our timing to visit the Cathedral’s Museum is poor as the staff are preparing to take their hour-long lunch break just as we are ready to enter. Don and Joyce head out for tea and we walk along the Stones to take in the coastal views and kill time before the museum reopens. The museum has a nice collection of carved stones salvaged from the ruins of the cathedral.
After visiting the cathedral, Mary and I check out the ruins of the St. Andrews Castle (also free with our Historic Scotland pass). The ruins of the castle are sited impressively, overlooking the coast. Very cool are the tunnels built during a siege of the castle. The attackers dug a tunnel under the walls in the hopes of destroying the foundation with gunpowder. The defenders dug a tunnel which halted the attack.
We stopped at ‘Hams Hame’, the pub next to the 18th green of the Old Course and associated with the Golf Hotel for soup and a pint, then resumed our search of the golf shops for the perfect SA cap.
Birthday dinner was at the Adamson (our 3rd time!) and was excellent as always. We finished the evening with cheese and wine in the Yorkston guest lounge.
