A Picture Perfect Day in Scotland

Last night, I lay in bed listening to the rain pelting against the window and wondering just what was instore for us today.  Much to my surprise, we awoke to sunshine and brilliant blue skies with white puffy clouds floating by.  Now, how lucky was that?

We happened to arise early,  ate a quick breakfast, and headed to Aberdour along the coast in Fife.  I've always been a wee bit partial to this beautiful village from the first moment we set foot in it, several years ago.  And we found ourselves going back and staying there on several occasions when Marty was working in Scotland years ago.

It's a relatively small and quiet village, with a beautiful harbor and the train station has earned the award of "the prettiest" in years past.   But what I love the best about this place is the easy access to the coastal trail and the views that it has to offer.  Gazing upon these photos, how could you not agree?

We opted to climb the trail to the top of the cliff for a view of the surroundings. 

Here you can see Inchcolm Abbey on the island in the Firth

as well as a magnificent view of the Forth Rail Bridge.

Just a spectaular day, don't you agree?

We took a quick stroll around the castle. Just for the record, Aberdour castle has been standing in that spot since the early 1100s, although a good part of it is ruins at this point, but carefully preserved by Historic Scotland.

At this point, we hopped in the car and headed to Falkland.  My original plan was to head to the Hill of Tarvit first so that we could enjoy tea in their cafe, but a last minute check on my part showed that the tea room was now closed for the rest of the season, thereby prompting the quick change  in the order of touring.

On our way to Falkland, we were redirected due to some sort of highway incident, and we found ourselves on a winding backroad in the middle of a windmill farm.  Certainly my first experience getting up close and personal with the gigantic machines.  I didn't think to take photos at that point, but,  I managed to capture a photo from the car just before we merged onto the highway.

There were at least a dozen or more standing in the fields surrounding Loch Gelly, something that we did not see in our past visits. We never cease to find something different along our travels, that's for sure!

Finally, we arrived in Falkland, parked the car, and as we were walking along the sidewalk into the village, we came across a lovely little tea room.  How could we resist?  We headed in and each of us enjoyed a lovely cup of tea and scrumptious, warm fruit scone, topped with raspberry jam Scottish whipped cream.

Just lovely!

With a smile on our faces, we headed out the door and over to the palace for a tour.  Falkland is a relatively small village, and, to be quite frank, the Palace takes up a good bit of it.  It continues to be one of the family holdings of the Queen, although she does not visit often.  We were told that Prince William popped in one day when he was at St. Andrews, as part of a history class that he was taking.  I found that to be amusing, considering that the subject of the glorified house would be his Royal relatives.

The interior holdings included a bed commissioned by James VI as well as numerous portraits of the family over the years.  We learned that it was Charles II's wife, Catherine of Portugal, who introduced the practice of drinking tea to Scotland, in the mid 1600's.  This certainly surprised me as I had somehow associated the practice as being a British tradition for many years earlier that this. 

At one time, this palace was considered to be the largest in all of Scotland.  It was a family retreat home to James V who visited occasionally.  Although the center portion is carefully preserved, parts of it stand as ruins.

I was also surprised to learn that there has been a Catholic Chapel inside since the palace was built in the early 1500's.  The ceiling and interior walls are the original and have been untouched all of these years. Mass continues to be said every Sunday at 9:00 AM in the chapel. 

One last feature worth mentioning is that the grounds house a tennis court built in 1541 for James V.  It is the oldest, original court in all of Great Britain.  The court is located near the back gardens of the palace which made for a lovely walk this afternoon.

Here we are with the back of the palace behind us.

The palace sits on the edge of the village, which, in itself is relatively small.  We took a few photos of the center fountain, and surrounding area before heading to the car park. 

I just can't get over how lovely this little village is!

At this point, we headed towards the Hill of Tarvit, which is located just outside of Cupar.  This is actually a stately mansion,  originally built in the 17th century, but transformed into Edwardian style in the early 1900s by Robert Lorimer.  If you recall, we learned about Robert from Margaret the tour guide at Kellie Castle. He was a renown architect, and the house reflects his brilliance.

The house featured delicately plastered walls and ceilings as well as finely carved wooden banisters throughout the rooms. 

Framed family photos hung in many of the rooms.

The house was equipped with "modern" conveniences, including electricity, running water and a telephone.

Here you see a food warmer designed by Lorimer, which looks like a wooden cabinet, but when you peek inside (and you know I did), the interior is completely metal, allowing for keeping the food warm, but not causing any damage to the wood while doing so.

How clever is that?

The relatively large bathroom featured an extremely unique shower, which not only featured a "rain" shower head, but also had little vents poked into the sides of the circular piece where you stand, so that one could choose to be "sprayed" from the sides!

I have the feeling that feature wasn't too popular since this is the one and only time that I have seen anything like this.

The house also had a large billiard table which was open for one to try a hand at if they chose.  Marty and Amy both tried a few rounds, but found the long length of the table to be a bit of a hindrance for play.

In the yard outside the front of the house, there was a relatively large group enjoying playing croquet.

They were certainly having a great time, and you really couldn't beat the weather for some outside entertainment!

But we decided that our feet had really had enough walking for one day, so we headed to South Queensferry where we will be staying for the next few days before departing on Sunday.

Here is another shot of the new bridge over the firth the I promised earlier.

You can see it just behind the old bridge.  

Our B&B was very easy to find, and let me just say that the room is awesome!  Here is the view from our bedroom window.

Can someone pinch me?  It really does seem too good to be true, doesn't it?

We walked down the street to a local Italian restaurant that is located right on the firth.  The waiter led us to a table next to the window with a fabulous view, seating us with a friendly, "Prego!" The background music was Perry Como singing "oldies" Romantic music.    Oh, and let me mention that the waiter was, indeed, VERY Italian, but was wearing a tartan plaid vest.  What a combination!

The food, view and atmosphere were all top notch.  We honestly could not have asked for a better evening.

Before I end for the day,  I  might just owe my newfound Scottish readers an apology regarding last evening's post.  I commented on my husband's embarrassment in having to order a drink called a "Woo Woo" at the bar.  I honestly never heard of such a thing.  Not that I'm a big drinker, but I really do think that I would have seen that name of a drink on a menu somewhere had it been available in the United States.

Well, look what I found today!

 Woo Woo in a can!,
So, here's to a Woo Woo, a dram and a magnificent view of the Forth Bridge at night!
You just can't ask for too much more than this, can you?

Tomorrow we are off to Edinburgh for the day, taking the train from Dalmeny station.  I see that rain is in the forecast, but am hoping that it will be sprinkles and not deluges.  In any event, we are up to the gallivanting adventure.  It will probably be a late night, so I can't say that I will get an update out tomorrow.

But I'll be sure to try to keep you posted!