Heading to the seaside
So, you would like to get out and about in Scotland? You want to see the sights, but don’t know where to start? For many of our groups staying in Edinburgh, this is their dilemma particularly if they’ve never been to Scotland before. Let’s see if we can help you with that.
Being part of an island, we are very lucky, really, to have the best of all worlds when it comes to scenery. We have plenty of options to access the sea as well as the hills, we have lots of open and green spaces and a great many lochs, all within relatively easy travelling distance of Edinburgh.
We have developed a number of day tour options for you to consider, it just depends what you would like to see, how long you are prepared to sit on a coach and what you would like to experience in terms of activities, also taking into account any budgetary considerations you may have.
So, let’s start today with an idea of what you could do if you head to the seaside.
Picture the scene: you board a luxury coach in Edinburgh city centre at around 0900 hrs in the morning. Your friendly driver then takes you to a point where you can view all three of the Bridges that cross the Firth of Forth (the Forth Rail Bridge, which if you use your imagination, looks a little like a Stegosaurus, the Forth Road Bridge, and the new Queensferry Crossing). If the weather is kind, this is a great spot to take a photo or two!
You will then cross the Forth Road Bridge and travel through Fife before stopping to visit a quaint old fishing village called Anstruther. You will have time off the coach to explore, have a coffee in one of the lovely coffee shops or just take some photographs along the stone pier and have a walk along the “front”. You might also like to gaze longingly through the windows of the Anstruther Fish Restaurant – regularly voted one of Britain’s best fish and chip shops. Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually open until later in the day!
When you re-board the coach, you would typically head to the famous university town of St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton both went to university. You will have plenty of time here to wander the ancient streets, walk along the beach or alongside the famous golf course (the Old Course), have lunch, or maybe just sit, watching and listening to the waves of the North Sea rolling in.
Tourist attractions you may wish to consider visiting would include the Secret Bunker, on your way to St Andrews, to discover how the country would have been run from underground in the event of a nuclear war. Later in the day you may wish to visit a whisky or gin distillery, the new V&A design museum in Dundee, or the RS Discovery ship that Captain Scott took to the Antarctic. The choice is yours. Another alternative could be to head a little bit inland and take a stroll in the woods to visit some pretty waterfalls.
Whatever you may choose to do, we would like to point out a couple of things to keep in mind:
Firstly, Scotland’s road network tends to be made up of smaller roads, there are not many fast roads for getting from place to place. Scotland looks nice and compact on a map, but that is deceptive. It can take quite a time to get from one place to another. As a result, we don’t promise to take you on a wild and wonderful tour of the “Highlands”. This kind of trip requires a couple of days out of Edinburgh and overnight stays. It is not realistic to do this in a day without spending the whole day sitting on the coach. Nobody wants to do that. Especially if it happens to be cloudy and rainy and then you won’t see any of our beautiful scenery.
We definitely advise you try not to be too ambitious in the distances you want to travel, and that you enjoy as much time out of the coach as possible soaking up the fresh Scottish air.
Secondly, there will be entrance ticket costs for most visitor attractions, so keep this in mind when budgeting for your day out. As a rough guide, at present, it is safe to say that most of these activities tend to cost between GBP 8.00 and GBP 15.00 per person, depending on the activity.
We hope that this answers some of your questions and has tempted you to join us on a whistle stop tour sometime. In a further blog, we’ll discuss other day tour options out of Edinburgh. Where would you like to go?