A Typical Scottish Weekend

There's a saying in Scotland... "If you see sky, it's going to rain. If you can't see sky, it's already raining." With the exception of a brief window of sunshine Saturday evening, our weekend in St Andrews fulfilled the tenets of that quote perfectly.

From the moment I stepped off the train Thursday evening to the moment we stepped back on the train Sunday afternoon, it was grey, windy, cold and invariably raining. Not that that is a bad thing in Scotland. Sure, if you go to the South of France or somewhere tropical, it would be miserable, but lets face it, it is Scotland and there is something to be said about suffering through miserable weather - though some people revel in it.

After an all day conference at the University of St Andrews, I was free to join Cora in relaxing for the weekend. We wandered the town at bit on Friday evening in the gathering cold and darkness. Now, St Andrews is a town with three large claims to fame: golf, the oldest university in Scotland and named after the patron saint of Scotland. Golf dominates a large swath of the town, especially down towards the West Sands area, which is where the Old Course and R&A clubhouse sit. In this area of town you will find oddly dressed men, many of which speak with unmissable American accents.

Moving up into the centre of town, University buildings crop up here and there. Unlike Cambridge, there are very few centralised colleges so students seem to meander all over the place, some carry books, others looks of unabashed wealth (it is the University of Prince William). Of course the golfers are still out in droves here as well, though now more of them have rather bored looking wives in tow.

Finally you reach the far Eastern end of town, where the old ruins of the Castle and Cathedral sit with impressive views out over the forbidding North Sea. The Cathedral used to be the biggest in Scotland and rivalled Santiago de Compostela in Spain as a pilgramage site, largely because it held relics of St Andrew. However, through the Reformation there were numerous attacks on the Cathedral and in the end it was reduced to only a few stretches of wall. It is an eerie feeling to stand in a grassy area with a fifty foot tall skeletal remain hulking above you and gravestones lined up just outside what should be walls. Add the harsh wind blowing straight off the sea and it was very atmospheric, though I am an historian, so maybe I see things differently.

We spent most of Saturday wandering various parts of the town, many of which we trod across multiple times. However, in the morning we wandered out onto the links courses that make St Andrews famous the world over. Now most people only know of the Old Course, but really there are three courses that kind of intertwine themselves throughout the dunes of the West Sands. The New Course is a mere 110 years old and is reckoned to be harder than the Old Course, but really if you were to see the pothole bunkers, blind shots of grouse as big as a house and wind whipping at all angles, it wouldn't really matter how hard they made the course, you would still shoot 150!

Now the most amazing thing about perhaps the most famous course in the world, is that members of the public can wander about it at will - bearing in mind that golf is a dangerous game.

Try to imagine doing that at Augusta or Congressional or one of those other famous courses. So, Cora and I wandered through the Jubilee, New and finally Old courses at will. We came across some players, most orthodox, others not so.

In the end we came to that place made famous through the ages, the small stone bridge in the middle of the 18th fairway and in some way it brings a level of peace to any soul, golfer or not.


All in all it was a good trip to Scotland and only proved to whet our appetite to explore more of this rugged and wild country, stay tuned for further adventures.

More pictures here