A week in Fife

We're back from a long overdue and really badly needed break in Scotland.  The last year has been pretty rocky for us as a family so we were very glad to finally get away and have a bit of space from things.  We'd booked a dog friendly cottage with a company we've used a lot (Pack Holidays for those of you with dogs) and found a house for rent in Kinghorn in Fife.  Despite living in London for nearly 40 years I'm a confirmed Weegie so the east of Scotland is like a foreign land and this was all new to  loved it... we stayed in a house a minutes walk to the beach and with the Fife Coastal Path running almost past the front door.  We had a week of walking on beaches, stopping off for coffees (and inevitably cake), and relaxing.  Crucially it was also only an hour away from Glasgow so we were able to finish the break with a few nights back home so we could catch up with family.

I could fill the blog post with photos of dogs (a couple might sneak in) but I thought I'd see what historical links I could find for places we visited.

Kinghorn...quite close to spot where Alexander III died

We stayed in Kinghorn which is one of several lovely little towns along the coast.  It's main claim to fame is that King Alexander III fell to his death here in 1286 on a dark and stormy night, precipitating a crisis which eventually resulted in the Scottish Wars of Independence 

Memorial to Alexander III

We also visited Falkland Palace which was used by assorted King's and Queens from James I onwards.  As with all Scottish sites, Mary Queen of Scots looms large but at least in this case it is somewhere she stayed a lot, and not the usual "MQoS stayed here for a night in 1542".  The town is very nice and was trading heavily on Outlander connections as it doubled as Inverness in the series apparently (I've never seen it). Several places in the region seem to have doubled as other locations and we met several American tourists who were clearly doing the Outlander trail.

Falkland Palace 

Finally we had a quick wander past St Andrew's castle.  St Andrew's itself is very much the touristy part of Fife... full of golfers and posh students (and we'd arrived on a day when graduations were happening) and more Americans.  The castle dates back to the 12th century and has changed hands multiple times.  It features a particularly unpleasant bottle dungeon.