Mini Kilt Tours Self-Drive Touring Guide Fife and St Andrews, a circular tour

By Andrea Middleton

A self-drive touring guide to Fife and St Andrews. Written by Andrea Middleton, an official Blue Badge Guide for Scotland with over 15 years experience, and herself a native of Scotland.
This is a circular tour that can be joined at any point, take yourself away around Fife as if you have your own personal tour guide with you, giving commentary, stories, folklore and legend, to make the area come alive, unlike standard guide books. Discover there is more to Fife than golf. as you hear about Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, Anstruther, Crail and St Andrews. Directions are also given to keep you on the right track. All you have to do now is set off and enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Middleton
• Release date: Apr 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311123060

Andrea Middleton

A professionally qualified Scottish Tourist Guide for over 15 years, I wanted to allow visitors to Scotland to take me on tour with them but not have to pay for a private tour guide. So I came up with the idea of the 'Self-Drive Touring Guide' series of books which anyone can download and take away on their holiday/vacation to Scotland. Unlike other guide books I provide not only the history but the folklores and legends along the route to give you the full Scottish experience. Directions and handy hints also help you to make the most of the journey.

Book preview

About Andy

For more information about me please visit my website, where you can also access my social media pages if you want to stay in touch.

In the meantime, I hope this guide will help you enjoy Scotland as passionately as I do.

http://www.minikilttours.co.uk

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INTRODUCTION

Having been a professional tour guide in Scotland for 15 years I have written this guide book so you can navigate your way around Fife on a circular route. I’ve also included a lot of the information and stories I’d be telling you if I was driving you there myself.

Unlike other guide books I aim to include local folklore and stories as well as historical fact to make the area come alive and hopefully give you a feel for the place rather than you just seeing it. Making it as if you had your own personal tour guide with you.

It’s hard to plan the text so that as you read it you arrive at different points, for we all drive at different speeds, but I’ve practised a couple of times reading the guide as I’ve travelled the route, and it does come together.

I have not included stops and visits, but have made some suggestions which I believe enhance your day.

Look out for directions starting ">>", like this example below, as they’ll help you spot milestones along the route:

>> Turn left at the bridge (example)

SUMMARY OF ROUTE:

A921

A955

A917

A91

A92

M90

DEPARTURE POINT

This is a circular route that you can join at any point and enjoy travelling in an anti-clockwise direction around Fife. But for the purposes of starting it somewhere I have chosen the Forth Bridges, south side A90.

1. FORTH BRIDGES TO KIRKCALDY

FORTH ROAD BRIDGE

This suspension bridge was opened in 1964 by HM The Queen. It spans a distance of 1.5 miles and as you cross from south to north you cross the River Forth from the Lothians into the Kingdom of Fife.

At the moment a second road bridge is being built which you can see on your left. Ahead on your left you can see a port. This is called Rosyth. During WW2 this was a naval port and so on some of the islands in this river are concrete structures that were built as look out defensive posts.

!! Looking right you see the iconic Forth Rail Bridge

!! Read on for information about the Rail Bridge

FORTH RAIL BRIDGE

This bridge was opened in 1890 and has become one of iconic views of Scotland. This is a cantilever bridge with Aberdeen granite holding the steel out of the water. Construction of this bridge used 26,000 tons of steel and 8 million rivets, the last rivet was made of gold and hammered in by the Prince of Wales at the opening ceremony in 1890. From then until today trains cross this bridge, a testament to Victorian engineering.

Painting the bridge used to take a year and it needed done every year. So if you ever talked about a never ending task in Scotland, you compared it to painting the Forth Rail Bridge. However, this is now not the case, the last coat of paint that went on was special paint that is to last 20 years.

Just to clarify trains do not go up and down over the structure like a roller coaster, it has been asked!

>> Drive over to north side of Forth Bridges. Take Junction 1 (not the first junction) and join the B981 heading east (right) and head into Fife

KINGDOM OF FIFE

Nobody knows why this part of Scotland is known as a ‘Kingdom’. There are various theories but by far the best one and probably the most real theory is that before Scotland was united there were several tribes occupying the country. By far the largest of these tribes, in terms of area they controlled, was the Picts. They occupied the east coast of Scotland north of the Forth to the top of the mainland, so this was part of their kingdom. Just don’t ask why the other counties haven’t kept the name of kingdom either.

In medieval times Fife was referred to as