This part of Scotland is home to its larger cities and is the gateway to the highlands in the north. From east to west, we visited St. Andrews in Fife and stayed in both Edinburgh and Glasgow with stops at Rosslyn Chapel and Stirling in Midlothian.
Midlothian. We were lucky enough to visit Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival. We caught the Military Tattoo, a couple of Fringe acts and spent the remainder of our time wandering around the city, ducking in and out of its narrow alleyways and wynds and climbing its hills. What a city with such great character and a blend of ancient and modern which elegantly clash together well. By far, one of our favorite places we visited in 2023. For more on our visit, check out our post on Edinburgh and on the Tattoo.
For our money, Glasgow is probably not a place to stop and stay. It’s a bit gritty and very industrial, but the Kelvingrove Art Gallery is a bit of a diamond in the rough. Worth a stop, if you’re driving by and it’s free to visit.
Similarly, we thought Rosslyn Chapel was fine, but not worth going out of your way or making a lot of effort to visit. Unless you’re part of the secret cabal running the world order or an enormous Dan Brown fan, you’ve probably never heard of Rosslyn. It was featured in the film the Da Vinci Code, which now brings busloads of tourists to take in the interesting stonemason carvings.
Stirling, on the other hand, is a short day trip from Edinburgh and you can both tour the castle and visit the Wallace monument outside of town easily in an afternoon. With time, you can also visit (we did not) Bannockburn, the battlefield where Robert the Bruce secured the pathway for Scotland’s independence. Whether you’re a Braveheart die-hard or not, we found Stirling an interesting visit for an afternoon.
Fife. Aside from driving through it, our only real stops in Fife were to stay at the home of golf, in St. Andrews and to try to see the puffins on the Isle of May out of Anstruther. St. Andrews is a town truly built around its golf and golfers. If you love golf, you’ll love it. While our puffin viewing was a bust, due to time of year, the cruise was great and very well run and narrated by the team at Anstruther Pleasure Cruises.
The Traveling Ridleys 