Around UK in 7 days: St. Andrews

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

After our trip to the Alnwick Castle, we head further north to Scotland, specifically to St. Andrews. St. Andrews is located on the east coast of Scotland, further than Edinburgh, but lower than Dundee (if you can't imagine where it is, just Google it!)

Anyway...the sole purpose to come here is this...

My dad is a huge golf geek. He loves..and I mean L.O.V.E.S his golf. St. Andrews is the home of golf, it's where golf originates, so to speak. The first ever golf tournament was held here, specifically at the Old Course. 

 

This was our accommodation for the weekend. Again, my mum found it from Airbnb. I'll write a review of it in another post. The purpose of this pic is the flowers in the red circle. Look at it carefully because you'll see them changed later on. 

 

The courses at St. Andrews or better known as St. Andrews links are open to the public, but you have to book the slots earlier on (either online or just walk-in to the clubhouse). There are 6 courses if I'm not mistaken. The Old Course is the most famous, where the legends play, most expensive, where people travel thousands of miles just to play at, and the oldest course, hence the name. This course is fully booked, months, almost a year in advance.

 

See how happy my dad is..huhu

Since he didn't get to play at the course, we just took pictures instead. The course is closed on Sundays, which was lucky enough the day we came to visit. So we get to stroll around freely and not disturb anyone playing.

 

See the green, how perfectly trimmed they are. My dad told me the grass are naturally like that (like carpet grass), that the workers only need to trim them now and again to keep them short. Unlike all other golf courses, where those greens are planted. That is why you can't wear other types of shoes, other than golf shoes on the grass in order to maintain them that way. But here, anyone can just walk around freely, as the course itself are very open. 

Even when there's a game, it'll still be open to the public. Only certain places you can't just simply walk, as people are playing. It's even very near the road, where my dad told me sometimes the balls will hit oncoming vehicles. Cars that are parked on the side of the course will be given notice, where they are parked at their own risk of stray balls.  

 

My dad told me this bridge is famous and legendary among golfers. This is the bridge where all golf legends walk on.

 

Of course, we didn't know that. There are quite a few people took pictures here. They must be big golf buffs too. =P

 

The weather wasn't really good when we were in Scotland, well..it's normal there I guess. This is some of the other courses here.

 

This is the clubhouse that I mentioned, besides the Jubilee course. You can book your slot here. They have a souvenir shop and a restaurant as well. 

 

There's one place called the Himalayas where the public (a noob like us, other than my dad) can have a whack at golfing. People can try out putting, £4 for 18 holes which are considerably cheap!! You can check the opening times on the board.

Of course we tried! Since it hasn't really stopped raining, we only paid for 9 holes which cost £1 per person only!! 

How awesome am I? hahaha...I could be a golfing protege. LOL

My dad was super proud when I made the put!

We were the only people left since it began raining heavily. We didn't stop since we were having too much fun. As the rain began to slow down a bit, a couple of older guys joined in. They offered to take our pictures as we were leaving. Very friendly old folks.

 

After all the golfing excitement, we went to visit the St. Andrews castle, since everything else started to close already. 

 

The cost to enter the castle is just £5 per person. If you want to combine the tickets to the cathedral as well, you can pay for only £8 for both. We weren't really keen on seeing the cathedral, so we just bought the tix for the castle.

 

This castle used to be a fort for Scotland before it was ruined in the war. There's very little of what's left of the castle. One interesting part of it is the tunnel that was dug up by the enemies that tried to penetrate the castle from outside. The protector of the castle, however, dug a counter-tunnel to fight them and prevent them from entering. 

 

The tunnels are still there, well intact. You can crawl in if you are adventurous enough.

 

I'm quite short, so you can imagine how low the ceiling actually is. Because it's a tunnel, the temperature is like a cave, quite chilly. If it's raining outside, you can see some streams got through inside. 

 

This is the tunnel end from inside the castle. There's no through the passage, so after you went down the tunnel, you have to walk/climb back up the same way. 

 

This is not a tunnel. Believe it or not, it used to be a dungeon. There are three levels of dungeon here that are kept for different classes of people. The higher levels are of course for the important people. For those who aren't so important, they throw those people in a flask shaped dungeon, where it has a tall narrow neck (as you can see from the picture) and a round bottom. The round and narrow neck are where they throw (I mean literally throw) the prisoners from, and build as it is so they won't be able to climb up. How sick is that? Talk about inhumane.

 

From the side of the ruins. There hardly any walls left. 

 

The front of the castle is the most part of the castle still standing.

Remember in Newcastle I told you about the bagpipe player? These are the genuine Scottish bagpipers. 

 

We were lucky they were there when we arrived.

 

Remember the flowers earlier?  This is what they look like in the morning...

 

and half bloom. SubhanAllah. I've never really seen such an amazing thing. 

Some more information for Muslims that wants to travel to Scotland. Just so you know, around the east coast of Scotland, or even England for that matter, uses beef drippings to fry their fish and chips or any other seafood. So please ask the restaurants that you want to visit if they can entertain to cook your food in vegetable or sunflower oil (sometimes they can) and not simply just go and eat even though they are seafood and chips. 

They do fry any other meat using the same oil (pork, chicken, beef). I know this because someone suggested Cromars Fish and Chips in St. Andrews, which is known as the best fish and chips in Scotland, or maybe even in the UK. But when we checked, they fry their food in beef drippings and don't cook any of them in vegetable oil, plus they also sell pork which they cook in the same oil. So during our trip, we didn't get to eat any fish and chips nor seafood because all of the places that we find only cook in beef drippings. So please be more aware of this.

Until next time....