Edinburgh Highlights: Eating, Drinking

March 3, 2026 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Continuing the highlights of our month long stay in Edinburgh…… here the best of ways we found to sustain ourselves between our sightseeing.

Dinners

Restaurants in Edinburgh are worthy of a capital city; there is both high quality and diversity. The best are also very popular and we couldn’t get a suitable booking at a couple of the restaurants on our wish list. It seems from the evening restaurant experiences we did manage (in between more basic meals back at our rented accommodation) that the clientele is dominated by young professionals. It seems that either the cost-of-living crisis is a fiction for this group. Or perhaps they are spending their discretionary funds on the short-term pleasures of dining out rather than accumulating savings in the face of whatever jobs crisis Artificial Intelligence is promising to create for them.

Little Capo was my favourite evening dining experience. The food, especially the burrata, was excellent and our seating at the bar put us in the centre of a buzzing atmosphere. The service was excellent – friendly, attentive but not too quick.

A close second was a meal at Vinette. A tiny entrance led to a rather labyrinthine space where, again, the service was very good and at a very comfortable pace. Our table was somewhere between a corridor and a room and Jane had to spend the evening looking at a fridge of hanging beef which wasn’t ideal. However, the food was unusual (we didn’t choose the steaks) and very tasty.

Lunches

As we had when we visited Edinburgh for a month last year, we had lunch at The Port Of Leith Distillery. This held some nostalgia for us since, last year, coming to the bar in the distillery had been our first real outing together after Jane had broken her shoulder. It was interesting too to see the result of the demolition work we had a ring-side seat for last year. My lunch was excellent but Jane said hers was too tepid to be really enjoyable.

*^{View From Port of Leith Distillery: Last Year (Top) Versus This Year. Royal Yacht Britannia To The Right}*

Better for lunch and with an equally good view was Cafe Calton. This is on Calton Hill and is very popular with residents and tourists alike. We started with a shared, very tasty Scottish Rarebit and my chicken burger was very good with enough unusual touches to raise it above the ordinary. The efficient, smiling staff seemed to be having a good time and so did we.

I know I wanted to avoid a list but I have to mention Sunday lunches at Brown’s of Leith. This has only been open for a few months but it is already hugely popular. It was perfect for informal lunch with a large canteen style dining area with three or four pop-up type food and drink providers around the edge including seafood and pizza. We went twice and I will go again next time we are up.

Coffee and Wine

In my mind, Smith & Gertrude just trumped our old favourites from previous Edinburgh visits: Cairngorm, Toast and Spry Wine Bar and Ante Coffee. I thought that Ante had the best coffee but they gave it to me in a cup with no handle so I couldn’t drink it easily while it was as hot as I like without burning my fingers; style over function in my view.

Smith and Gertrude with its turntable playing classic vinyl, lovely cheese and wine selection. On one day, we dived in there as it opened at 4pm to have a swift glass of wine before picking up FG from nursery. The frisson of mischievousness on our part from being 10 minutes later than usual in picking him up was memorable.

Pubs

One of our longer walks took us through the residential area of Trinity which is full of 18^th and 19^th century villas and solidly built terraced houses. Just beyond, was the Firth of Forth and The Starbank Inn which provided a view of the sea and good food and beer.

The Firth of Forth Outside The Starbank Inn. Gloomy Day But Nice To See The Sea! — *^{The Firth of Forth Outside The Starbank Inn. Rather A Gloomy Day But Nice To See The Sea!}*

Although it was just over the road from where we were staying, we only managed to get into Teuchters Bar & Bunker, the scene of my rather unfortunate seating failure during last year’s visit, once.

Because Teuchters majors on the rugby I called upon the outstanding knowledge of Eldest Son’s parents-in-law for suggestions for a venue to watch an Arsenal football game with Youngest Son (he’s a big Arsenal fan) on a rainy Sunday night. They came up with Platform 5 which turned out to be perfect; a sports bar with a telly showing the Arsenal game in a sea of screens showing the (Glasgow) Rangers versus (Edinburgh) Hearts game in front of dozens of energised Scottish football fans. The atmosphere was great, the cheering was raucous, broken glass was on the floor, the bar staff were working flat out and Arsenal won (but Hearts lost); great evening!

As usual, Edinburgh had much to offer. There is still a lot that we have left to do there – I’ve still not been to a music concert there for example. We love it.

*^{Sunset Over Edinburgh And The End Of Our Stay}*

Edinburgh Highlights: Viewing

March 1, 2026 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

We achieved so much in our month in Edinburgh and there seemed to be something memorable every day. The weather was grey and drizzly for most of the first three weeks, we both caught colds (the only apparent downside of visiting grandchildren) and I had a nasty recurrence of tinnitus for a few days. But my joints behaved, we had a nice place to stay and had a great time.

Listing all that we did will turn into a long list so, below, I’ll focus on the best and most pleasurable….. Sights seen first and then eating and drinking….

Art Galleries

As usual, we visited several private and public art galleries. Best for me were the several different exhibitions that came and went while during our month-long stay at the Scottish National Gallery. As last year, perhaps the best of these were the two substantial exhibitions of the best works by members of the Royal Scottish Academy. The first was for work of all types and the second focused on watercolours.

Various Works At The Royal Academy Show, Scottish National Gallery — *^{Various Works At The Royal Academy Show, Scottish National}*

*^{Huge Variety Of Watercolours from Royal Academicians At The Scottish National Galley Show}*

Alongside these there were two other exhibitions in the National Gallery. One celebrated the 200^th year of the Academy and was called Origin Stories. It showed works throughout the last two centuries and illustrated how members of the Academy (‘academicians’) supported, taught, mentored and inspired each other through a network of artistic relationships. The second was a small exhibition of Modern Miniatures – both small sculptures and paintings. All of this was very good to see.

'Modern Miniatures' At The Scottish National Gallery — *^{‘Modern Miniatures’ At The Scottish National Gallery}*

Elsewhere the Modern One was showing its rehanging of its permanent collection. Also, the City Art Centre was as excellent as usual with an exhibition of Scottish Portraiture alongside its permanent collection.

Works Qt Modern One Including One From A New Peter Doig Exhibition (Top Left) — *^{Recently Re-hung Works At Modern One And One From A New Peter Doig Exhibition (Top Left)}*

*^{Pictures At The City Arts Gallery (Including By Joan Eardley and John Bellany)}*

……And I always love visiting the National Portrait Gallery where the great entrance hall is so impressive.

*^{Entrance Hall Of The Scottish National Portrait Gallery}*

Here, this visit, there was a fascinating exhibition of photographic art by Alfred Buckham (‘Daredevil Photographer’) who, in the first half of the 20^th century, created aerial pictures from three negatives – one of a plane, one (or sometimes more) of clouds and one of a city or landscape taken from his own plane. He travelled the world as a somewhat larger-than-life Englishman, clearly had a great sense of humour, and produced some remarkable images.

Edinburgh BY Alfred Buckham — *^{Edinburgh By Alfred Buckham}*

Other Exhibitions

Dovecot Studios was also well worth visiting as we usually do. First, we saw an exhibition along the viewing balcony of tapestries made at the studios. I thought some of these were very good to look at and almost all were impressive in some way.

*^{The Dovecot Studio And Some Of The Tapestries On The Balcony}*

Downstairs we saw a new exhibition: The Biba Story: 1964–1975. Biba fashion rather passed me by at the time. Regardless, the exhibition was well laid out and interesting.

*^{The Biba Exhibition At Dovecot Studios}*

The exhibits conveyed the distinctive Biba style, the development of the brand was fascinating, and the stores that sold the goods were clearly impressive. At the end, my questions about textile sourcing and what the accessories looked like were largely answered but I was left unclear about why the whole enterprise came to an abrupt end.

On a different scale, we saw a small exhibition of textiles and weaving by Lynda Graham at Mote102 Jane keeps an eye on this tiny gallery and we have visited before. It’s a intimate space with undecorated, rough walls that is perfect for the types of exhibitions Mote102 present. Indeed, the walls are almost as interesting as the art.

Films

The Everyman Cinema is a luxury with big sofas and the option to buy drinks and food from them. We saw and, overall, enjoyed Marty Supreme. Timothy Chalamet was very good but, as Jane said afterwards, the film has so much action that it felt like being hit around the head with a rolled-up newspaper for two and a half hours.

We also saw and enjoyed Hamnet. I especially enjoyed the last 20 minutes of Hamnet and can understand why Jessie Buckley has won so many awards for her performance.

I also went with Eldest Son to see the very different 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple at the Everyman Cinema. It was impressive throughout; the music and acting are top notch (especially Ralph Fiennes). This was my best cinematic experience overall while in Edinburgh; especially so since Eldest Son, who is a huge fan of the whole 28 series, had kindly shown me the prequel on his laptop/telly the previous day so that I was up to date.

Day Trips

We only left Edinburgh/Leith twice once to visit Stirling and the other time to visit Rosslyn Chapel.

There was a limited amount to see in Stirling but the train ride there was smooth and Stirling Castle is very impressively located, presented and preserved. It was made ornate and grand by James V as a way of underlining his status (some might say narcissism). The statues and rooms remain majestic.

*^{Inner Royal Chambers And The Chapel (Bottom Right), Stirling Castle}*

Our visit benefitted from gorgeous sunny weather and the views from the hill top on which it was built were of snowy mountains and wide river valleys. The history of the castle, its architecture and rooms were all well explained and maybe we will revisit it one day with a grandchild or two in tow since the presentations were very child-friendly. My lasting memories though, will be of the 360-degree panoramas available from the castle site and the neighbouring cemetery.

Our visit to Rosslyn Chapel did not benefit from sunny weather but it was an unexpectedly impressive building and, again, its history, architecture and specific features were well explained.

It seems that Victorian renovation efforts, following a long period of disrepair after the Reformation and attacks by Thomas Cromwell in 1650, were rather ill conceived. Severe problems with damp remain. However, and despite the building only being about half of what was originally intended by the owning St Clair family, it is a gothic marvel. The carving throughout the chapel is remarkable and the stories surrounding it – including those amplified by Dan Brown in his famous book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ – are absorbing.

Again, I can imagine revisiting the Chapel in the future with grandchildren but on a drier, sunnier day so that we can appreciate the views and walk through the adjoining woodland rather more.

Best Walk

The best walks were with First Grandchild (FG) between our rented mews house or FG’s nursery and his home. Sometimes he sang, sometimes he ran or skipped, and sometimes he showed us the sights of Edinburgh from his perspective. We particularly enjoyed him pointing out the absent parts of clothes dummies in the windows of fashion shops – some didn’t have feet, some lacked arms and all were missing their faces. FG is almost constantly amusing as he burns off energy and reveals his vivid imagination.

I walked along the Water of Leith and through the Royal Botanic Gardens many times and walking around of the Georgian architecture West End and New Town is endlessly satisfying.

*^{Barely Spring Views In The Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh}*

However, my favourite walk without FG during our month in Edinburgh was along the Union Canal. This showed me once industrial parts of Edinburgh I’d not seen before and the Slateford Aqueduct over the Water of Leith was an unexpected and impressive sight. The Water of Leith Visitor Centre nearby wasn’t open but I’ll be back.

Indeed, I am already looking forward to our next visit to the sights of Edinburgh.

Museums: Cheltenham and Bristol

February 2, 2026 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

We are currently in Edinburgh for the second of our annual, month-long, winter stays to continue to build our affinity with the city and, this time, spend some time with a new addition to our Edinburgh family. In the days before we left for Edinburgh and all the excitement there, I visited two museums – in Cheltenham and in Bristol.

*^{Winter Near Our Home – But With Snowdrops Emerging}*

I demonstrated a hint of senility recently as I bought the wrong trousers online. That error led me to a rare visit to Cheltenham via foot, bus and train. There, I could exchange the trousers face to face rather than go through another online and postal exchange which I would probably have messed up. Having completed the exchange, and given I was under no time pressure, I thought I would take a look at the The Wilson Museum which I only became aware of through a recent advert in our local culture listings.

The museum is in a smart modern building but was founded over 100 years ago around the collection of the Wilson Family including Antarctic explorer, Edward Wilson. The museum has undergone some recent restorations and re-organisations and has a pleasant café, educational play areas for children and a few good-sized rooms for permanent and temporary exhibitions of art and artifacts. Given how good and wholesome it was, I felt negligent in not having visited before.

The highlight was a room containing art and furniture from the Arts and Crafts movement. I’ve loved seeing exhibitions of work of this type in the past in London (and especially the William Morris Museum and Thomas Carlyle’s House which I had visited in August and September 2019). What I hadn’t fully appreciated until now was how important the Cotswolds were as a locus of the energy and talent that drove the movement. Many of the main protagonists such as Ernest Gimson, the Barnsley brothers and William and Eve Simmonds, lived in villages and homes we have walked though or past many times in recent years.

*^{Arts And Crafts At The Wilson Museum, Cheltenham}*

The exhibition was well laid out and had a good combination of very high-quality luxury pieces and very plain but beautifully designed furniture that still bore the hall marks of the movement but was for families with limited means. The latter showed how the movement aimed to bring great design and well-made things to the working population in the face of increasing industrialization and mass production.

Then, on the day before our trip to Edinburgh, Jane and I stepped up to manage Second Grandchild’s (SG’s) trip in and out of his nursery while his parents attended a funeral and worked in London. Seeing SG is always fun and it was interesting visiting his nursery for drop off and pick up and lovely to see him waving us off so happily.

In between, I walked into the centre of Bristol while Jane returned home to get a haircut. My primary aim was the 2026 iteration of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition which was on tour from its home in the Natural History Museum in London and on show at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.

I love this competition and exhibition and have seen it many times in London. It was a treat to be able to weave this year’s viewing seamlessly into my local schedule of retired life while helping Second Son and his partner. Plus, there was the bonus of visiting another relatively local museum for the first time.

The Photographer of the Year exhibition didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately perhaps, my favourite photos were the very first I saw. These were aerial drone shots of the tundra by Alexey Kharitanov that contained incredible colour. The remainder of my wander around the exhibition was not exactly anticlimactic but many of the animal shots were, maybe inevitably, rather similar in style to those from previous years and, so, less memorable. One excellent thing though is that all the exhibition is available online and so there was no need to fiddle around with picture taking of the best.

'Taiga Tapestry' By Alexey Kharatanov — *^{‘Taiga Tapestry’ By Alexey Kharitanov}*

The rest of the museum had interesting rooms, exhibiting a wide range of art since Medieval times, a large natural history collection, and an exhibition demonstrating the long history of ceramic production in Bristol before it was overtaken by The Potteries in Staffordshire. I saved some areas for another time and look forward to an opportunity to show SG the excellent collection of stuffed native birds and animals.

Bristol Ceramics — *^{Bristol-Made Ceramics, Bristol Museum}*

From the museum I wandered towards the city centre and had a ‘smashed’ burger from a street food vendor (Boigers) who do occasional pop-ups at our local village pub. It was another first for me and the burger was pretty tasty though, I suspect, nutrition-light.

My final trip element before heading back to pick up SG, was a brief visit to Bristol Cathedral. This wasn’t a first time visit but it has been over a decade since my last one which I snuck in while working briefly in Bristol.

*^{Bristol Cathedral From The Old Monastery Garden}*

It is, of course an impressive building. A helpful and patient gentleman gave me a summary of the history. He outlined how the building has almost continuously evolved over the last 1,000 years and especially since it was taken apart by Henry VIII as he closed the Augustine Monastery that had been at the cathedral’s heart. I had a very pleasant wander around and was impressed with the way the light and airy nave had been extended so sympathetically in the late 19th century to echo the Medieval parts of the building.

Jane and I had a last lovely little dose of SG while starting to receive more photos of the arrival of Third Grandchild in Edinburgh. What a full and exciting day it had been. More excitement to follow!

*^{Early Glimpse Of The New Arrival in Edinburgh}*

Art in Bilbao

October 29, 2025 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The attraction of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum was the main reason for us choosing to visit Bilbao. It is certainly the main tourist magnet in the city and a centrepiece that dominates views downstream from the Old Town and from the slopes to the north of the city. We visited it straight after breakfast on our first day and, after a quick wander around the amazing building, were ready for entry at opening time.

Fortuitously and a little randomly, we went straight to the top floor with a plan of working our way down. That avoided the initial rush of visitors and enabled us to visit Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Mirrored Room’ before any queue had built up. Jane knew what to expect but I didn’t and when we got inside the room containing the work, I was taken aback. Unfortunately, I then spent more time posing for a picture of the two of us in the mirrors than understanding what I was looking at before we were ushered out with our visiting time having expired. Our visit made for an interesting photo though….

After that rather helter-skelter experience, we were able to take our time perusing the top floor. It became clear that some of the permanent collection was not on show at this time. While that was disappointing, there was plenty to see.

*^{Views From Inside, And Of The Inside, Of The Guggenheim}*

Much of the space on the first floor was taken up by an exhibition custom-made for the Guggenheim by American artist Barbara Kruger called ‘Another day. Another night’. This was dominated by multiple words and phrases stuck to the walls, ceilings and floors. These were in Spanish (not unreasonably given we were in Spain!) so I absorbed the overall effect rather than the meanings. Elsewhere there were video artworks that probed the ambiguity of word meanings and one of these was a rather timely and captivating analysis of the words (and their imagined alternatives) in the US Constitution.

Another temporary exhibition by Sky Hopinka called ‘No Power’ was also a series of videos but I confess I didn’t stay to the end.

Better, I thought, were the large spaces devoted to variety of artists’ works from the permanent collection though none really gripped me. The flower sculpture, ‘Puppy’ by Jeff Koons at the entrance to the Guggenheim was undergoing renovation but another of his works was inside alongside art by Jean-Michel Basquiat and a number of artists I hadn’t heard of before. There was also a typically large painting by Anselm Kiefer who is one of my favourite artists (though this one was a rather dull compared to others I have previously enjoyed).

Familiar Territory - Anselm Kiefer's The Paths Of World Wisdom' — *^{Familiar Territory – Anselm Kiefer’s ‘The Paths Of World Wisdom’}*

The best exhibit for me was the huge composite sculpture by Richard Serra called ‘The Matter of Time’. It occupies a vast dedicated space on the ground floor of the Guggenheim and was great fun to walk through and around. The balcony above provided an opportunity to take in the scale and entirety of the work while close inspection of the surfaces of the sculpture showed fascinating differences on colour and texture of the Corten (or weathered) steel of which it is made. It’s a highly memorable aspect of the Guggenheim.

As we emerged from the Guggenheim, we experienced one of the periodic ‘fog sculptures’ designed by Fujiko Nakaya. For a few minutes, the water and promenade next to the museum fills with a mist. Walking through this is an interesting experience and it creates some ghostly views of the museum and its surrounds.

*^{Fujiko Nakaya Fog Sculpture At The Guggenheim}*

We then walked along the river bank past one of Louise Bourgeois’s Spiders (see below) and made our way to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

This gallery has a lovely Art Deco façade which appeared to be undergoing some restoration. Inside, all was peaceful and spacious and I really enjoyed the visit.

The entrance hall has a wide variety of work which, most interestingly, contained Richard Serra’s model for ‘The Matter of Time’ sculpture we had just seen in the Guggenheim. It was a little weird to see the same work we had just experienced in the Guggenheim on such a smaller scale.

Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Including The Model Of 'The Matter Of Time' By Richard Serra — *^{Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Including The Model Of ‘The Matter Of Time’ By Richard Serra}*

The highlight of the Fine Art Museum was a large exhibition of work by Georg Baselitz, a German artist. I had only vaguely heard of him before; indeed, I had seen and liked a couple of his works that we had seen earlier in the day in the Guggenheim. Here was a very large collection of his portraits.

*^{Paintings By Georg Baselitz, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum}*

These were mainly of people portrayed either upside down or on their side. Many appeared as figures akin to skeletons. Some had been painted while a disabled Baselitz scooted across the canvas in his wheelchair thereby creating strange tyre track markings across the canvas. This was initially all a bit disorienting – I think that was Baselitz’s objective – but as we walked from huge room to huge room, I got in tune with his paintings and really enjoyed the collective feel of them.

As we left the museum with our culture fix complete, and still two whole days in sunny Bilbao to go, we felt very satisfied with our choice of Bilbao as a city to visit.

Enjoying Fife

August 1, 2025 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

We have just returned from a really excellent time in Scotland. We stayed with our Edinburgh based family and then gathered them up for a few days in Fife. We then returned to Edinburgh for our wedding anniversary celebrations and a bit more time in our favourite city. This is the longest sustained period we have spent with First Grandchild (FG) (and his parents) and it was a real treat.

We decided to travel to our holiday Airbnb in Fife via The Kelpies. These are huge metal statues of horse spirits that, as legend has it, tempted humans into the river and drowned them. The story may be a bit grim but the monuments, designed by Andy Scott, are very impressive. FG was less enamoured with the Kelpies than we were but walking around them was a useful activity break before the next section of driving to a recommended cafe in Culross on the north bank of the Firth of Forth.

FG’s wife always ensures that we eat very well when we visit Edinburgh and surrounds – either through her excellent and seemingly effortless cooking, or through her restaurant recommendations. The Mercat in Culross was a cafe and homeware shop that Jane had also heard about and the toastie lunch there didn’t disappoint.

*^{Views of Culross (Top One Courtesy of National Trust Scotland)}*

Culross is a very pleasant town. The market square was small but pretty and the buildings along the coast front were clearly historic. They are preserved well enough to, apparently, be used in a lot of period films and television series, some of which we have seen. The old wealth of the town was based on coal. While FG enjoyed the substantial playground, I read up on the innovative way in which the coal was loaded onto ships via a tunnel under the water of the Forth of Firth and then up a lift shaft onto the pier.

*^{Culross And The Firth of Forth (Pic Courtesy of National Trust Scotland)}*

Our holiday home was one of four new, eco-type buildings on the Charleton Estate in East Fife. It housed us comfortably (once we got used to the limited storage spaces and the absurdly steep stairs to Jane and my bedroom) and was surrounded by a golf course and open land we could walk around. In summary, it was near ideal and a great base for discovering other parts of Fife.

I liked Fife very much. We had visited the east Fife coast once before immediately after the wedding of ES and his wife in late 2022. Then, however, Jane was ill and the weather was so poor that we didn’t appreciate the environment much beyond being impressed with the scale of the flooding and the wind velocity. This time, we had warm and mainly sunny weather.

Many of the Fife towns have an interesting industrial and mercantile past often based on coal. The usually pretty main streets of solidly-built Georgian or Victorian houses and cottages indicate a historic wealth. Around these, the landscape is clearly fertile and is dominated by agriculture – mainly potatoes, wheat and attractive fields of manure/ground cover crops such as white radish and phacelia.

The coastal towns near our base were particularly attractive. Anstruther looked a bit touristy but Elie harbour was lovely and we spent several hours there helping FG potter about, make sand constructions, search for ‘treasure’ and paddle.

Even better was St Monans. I love this place. It’s a stop off from the Fife coastal walk – some of which is walkable only at low tide. It has a great, compact, sturdy harbour, many 17^th and 18^th century cottages and several grander old houses. I particularly enjoyed the views of the church (one of the oldest in Scotland) and the walk along the coast to a windmill.

*^{Coastal Walk Route And St Monans Church}*

On the walk I saw and/or heard interesting birds including yellowhammers, curlews, redshanks and oystercatchers. I then passed a huge tidal swimming pool built in the 1930s and still popular with wild swimmers today.

St Monans has a long history of fishing and industry. The windmill was used to pump sea water into buildings with salt pans. The foundations of these buildings are still visible. Using local coal, it seems that the salt industry all along the Firth of Forth coast was huge in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries until foreign imports became too competitively priced. It was interesting to see the remains of this bit of St Monans’ history.

On top of all this, St Monans has some very good cafes and restaurants including the Giddy Gannet and the East Pier Smokehouse (which provided an excellent smoked seafood stew in a beautiful location).

*^{St Monans From East Pier Smokehouse}*

We also ate very well at the The Kinneuchar Inn in the centre of another nearby, very pretty little town (Kilconqhuar). At all these meals, FG was very absorbed with his pebbles, shells and card games and was so well behaved (with a bit of ‘management’) that we could relax.

While in Fife, we also visited St Andrews. On the way, I was dropped off in Cupar while the others went on to an adventure park and a pick-your-own fruit farm. Like so many other towns, Cupar has a history back to Medieval times and a lot of nice old buildings. However, apart from a nice parish church and a walk along the Eden River, Cupar was relatively unassuming and unmemorable.

St Andrews, on the other hand, was very grand with its ancient university (founded in 1413), its prestigious golf course, beautiful beaches and historic buildings.

The cathedral, built in 1138, is now a ruin but has an impressive location. Within its grounds is St Rule’s Tower which pre-dates the cathedral. Together they are an impressive sight and a big tourist attraction.

St Andrews Cathedral and St Rule's Tower — *^{St Andrews Cathedral and St Rule’s Tower}*

Our break in Fife had all I could have wished for. We enjoyed variety, history, wildlife, attractive British landscapes, pretty towns and great places to eat. That culinary pleasure included a very good home barbeque engineered by ES. Plus, of course, we loved spending quality time with FG. We loved seeing him enjoy the whole holiday whether on the beach, in the playgrounds or learning how to play simple card games. I hope we can do something like it again sometime.

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