Dan and I only had a week in Scotland on our own before we were due to meet my family in St. Andrews for my cousin’s college graduation. With only seven days and no car we knew we wouldn’t be able to squeeze in all of Scotland’s must-see destinations. We definitely wanted to hit the two major cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. We also felt like we couldn’t go to Scotland and not enjoy some of the beautiful countryside. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it up to the famous Scottish Highlands or over to the Isle of Skye so we landed on Pitlochry as our base for exploring some of Scotland’s natural landscape.

Pitlochry

Pitlochry is a cute little town on a river with one main street lined with coffee shops and pubs. Pitlochry is pretty touristy but it’s on a train line and there are hikes and other outdoor activities you can do within walking distance of town.  We found an awesome running path along the river and spent our days there relaxing, picnicking and enjoying the outdoors.

Pitlochry is also the closest town to Scotland’s smallest whisky distillery, Edradour.  After getting to taste some Scotch whisky in Glasgow Dan was eager to tour a distillery.  I was excited to hear that we could get to it via a 30 minute hike through the nearby woods.

The hike actually took longer than expected and we had to really hoof it to make it to the distillery for the last tour.  (Which turned out not to be an issue; they hadn’t updated their summer hours on their website.)  Despite the rush I had to pause a few times to take photos of the absolutely beautiful scenery around us.

The distillery tour itself was fun, if a little cheesy.  I’m not a huge whisky drinker but after a guided tasting I began to appreciate what people love about Scotch.  The distillery has been in operation since 1825 and is still making whisky the old traditional way.  Their facilities look more like a farm than a factory and it was really interesting to learn about their process.

Pitlochry ended up being the perfect rural getaway for our quick trip to Scotland.  We spent our first wedding anniversary there and had a lovely day relaxing by the river and eating dinner at a local pub.  It is also the site of the craziest small world story of the trip so far.  We were out for a drink one night when I heard a familiar voice say, “Heather?”  It was my best friend’s brother and his wife, in Scotland for their honeymoon!  We could not believe we ran into people we knew in a tiny town in the middle of Scotland. It was great to see some familiar faces so far from home.

St. Andrews

St. Andrews was supposed to be an easy train ride from Pitlochry.  However, as we learned in Portugal, even short train trips can involve unexpected hiccups.  The morning we were due to leave for St. Andrews we arrived at the station to learn that our train had been canceled.  Ok… we’d take the next one.  Except that one kept getting more and more delayed as apparently maintenance work on the tracks was taking longer than expected.  After hanging out at the station for most of the morning a train finally arrived and we were off!

St. Andrews is a great town.  It definitely has a college-town vibe with lots of little pubs and restaurants and it was fun getting to see it during the festive graduation season.  Sight-seeing wise my favorite place we visited was the old cathedral.

I’ve mentioned a few times what a nerd I am when it comes to historic buildings and this one is especially cool.  The cathedral is almost 900 years old but it fell out of use in the 16th century when Catholicism was outlawed following the Reformation.  Now parts of the church stand beautifully preserved while other sections are completely missing.

One of my favorite days in this part of Scotland was spent exploring the coast south of St. Andrews with Dan, my aunt Nora and my cousin Maddie. We started our adventure with a lovely lunch at a cafe overlooking the harbor in the tiny town of St. Monans.

From there we drove down to Elie to start hiking the Fife Coastal Path.  The weather in Scotland was pretty hit or miss while we were there but we got super lucky with warm temperatures and beautiful clear skies for our walk.

The entire coastal path is 117 miles long so we only got to explore a small section of it but the scenery was simply fantastic.

Every vista looked like something from a postcard.  The scenery in this part of the world definitely lives up to its reputation.  I’m so glad we had an excuse to see this gorgeous part of Scotland.

Of course, the highlight of our time in St Andrews wasn’t the natural beauty but the chance to hang out with my aunt, uncle and cousins.  Even though Dan and I love getting to spend so much time together on this trip we get lonely for company besides each other.  It was so wonderful to get to spend time with family half way around the world.