St Andrews, Fife: The Birthplace of Golf

St Andrews is a coastal town just 25 minutes from Dundee. Known around the world as the birthplace of golf (which is completely lost on me), it boasts old world charm, epic scenery, and a world renown university. It is, in fact, the entire reason we're in Scotland. Greg will be doing chemistry research at the University of St Andrews.

We decided before Greg starts working that we'd take a drive over to see where he's going to be working and walk the city a little bit. Initially, before settling on Dundee, we were going to try and live in St Andrews so that Greg could walk to work and we wouldn’t need to use a car as much so I did a lot of google street-viewing the town and surroundings. Seeing it on google maps does not do it justice. Unfortunately, we were either beat to the punch with rentals or priced out of the market, being a university town, that isn't so unexpected.

The town center is absolutely lovely. There are tons of shops and adorable little restaurants. It’s a bustling tourist town that is quite busier than you’d expect. On this beautiful sun-filled day, we had a delicious little lunch at this place called Mitchell’s housed in an old butcher shop that still functions as a small deli. I had a delicious Sweet Potato, Chickpea, and Spinach burger and it was amazing! It's also where we discovered my new favorite hard cider, Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime. It's seriously delicious and if you can find it, I highly recommend it.

After lunch we took a stroll through the University of St Andrews campus which is an incredible sight to behold. It's Scotland's oldest university and the 3rd oldest in the United Kingdom. It's hard to believe these old buildings are still used today. The path through campus leads to the St Andrews Castle which looks over a rocky sand beach called Castle Sands. The castle dates back to 1200AD and was in use as a residence, prison, and battle ground until the 1690's.

The view of the castle overlooking the beach is magnificent. The jetties extend far out in to the water, calming it enough for people to swim. There were quite a lot of people hanging in and around the water! We were able to tour the castle ruins but just from the outside as repairs made it off limits for the time being, we'll definitely head back once repairs are completed though!