Edinburgh to Pitlochry
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2008
1
22
57
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Pitlochry,
United Kingdom
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
After a brief history lesson on Edinburgh as we departed the city heading north, we were on our way to St Andrews. St Andrews is a gorgeous town which juts out on a peninsular. St Andrews is home to Scotland's first university and also claims to be the location where the sport of golf was invented so naturally St Andrews has a golf course. This course is somewhat exclusive though if you are a bit of a fan of the sport and want to be able to say that you've played there you can hire a putter and ball from the club shop and have a put on the practice green for about 3 quid. The town itself is a picturesque seaside community with white painted houses, shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants. The most interesting things to see here are the ruins of both St Andrew's Castle and St Andrews Cathedral. The castle sits on a rocky promontory overlooking a small beach called Castle Sands and the adjoining North Sea. There has been a castle standing at the site since around 1200 AD. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, the castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times as it changed hands between the Scots and the English.
Edinburgh from Calton Hill
What can be seen today is the rebuilding work of Bishop Walter Trail and was completed in 1400 though the castle fell into ruin in the mid 1600s and a large amount of stone was taken from the site to repair a nearby pier. Entrance to the castle costs 7 quid though you can get a pretty good view from the outside if all you want to do is take a picture. The ruins of St Andrews Cathedral are stunning. In its day, this building was enormous with a length of over 100 meters and the spires, which remain today, have a height of 33 meters. Work began on the new cathedral in 1158 and continued for over a century. Fire partly destroyed the building in 1378 though the cathedral was restored. At about the end of the 16th century the building became unsafe and began to collapse.Next stop was Dunkeld for a brief look at a ruined church before making our way through the small township.
The hermitage is a picturesque little park which was made as an experiment by the Duke of Athol to test various species of trees for their tolerance of the harsh conditions of this area. His botanist, John the Planter, was apt in the use of artillery and took to the use of a cannon to fire seeds through the air, saving time and effort and also allowing for a more random method of planting. There is a bridge, waterfall and little viewing house which were used by the Duke and his companions to enjoy hallucinogenics and create art and poetry.
What trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to a genuine distillery? Our next stop gave us the opportunity to sample a good single malt Scottish whiskey and have the distilling process explained. Edradour claims to be the smallest legal operating distillery in Scotland. It has been in operation since 1825, the tour was interesting and the whiskey here is superb, well worth a stop.
We spent the night at the small pretty town of Pitlochry where we pooled our resources and used economies of scale to purchase the makings of that evening's meal. This being Scotland, we cooked up haggis which consists of all those gross bits of a sheep like intestines, kidney, liver and heart which have minced and normally made into balls and placed inside intestines. With a necessity to utilise the cheapest parts of the sheep the meal haggis was invented. The Scottish claim it as their own, though other cultures also eat similar variations of this meal. It's normally served with traditional veggies though we cooked it up with spaghetti.
