Mad weather in St Andrews, Scotland

The Scottish flag blows in strong wind

There is no place in the world quite like Scotland. Maybe I just haven't visited enough places yet, but as you can probably guess from the title of this post, Scotland has some pretty cray cray weather. And when I say cray cray, I mean it's like Armageddon outside, the kind of weather that makes you run for shelter to get out of it hailing, snowing and raining. All at the same time.

St Andrews, which is about an hour or two's drive north of Edinburgh and sits right by the coast, is a popular tourist destination and perhaps today best known for being the location of the university where Prince William and Kate Middleton met.

A bunch of my flatmates and I headed up to St Andrews on a trip with the Edinburgh University International Student Society and spent an entire Saturday exploring the quaint, tiny town.

L to R: Joan, me, Savannah, Lizzie and Radha

Radha looking over a cemetery in St Andrew's Cathedral. The tower in the middle is open to the public.

The two main Historic Scotland attractions in St Andrews are the cathedral and castle, both now in ruins. The day before it had just snowed, so everything was covered in a fine dusting of powder!



Climbing to the top of the tower in St Andrew's Cathedral is - be warned - extremely claustrophobic. It's a tiny staircase; the last thing you want to do is to be going up and have someone try to come down because there's barely enough space for even one person to move, let alone two.

The steps are incredibly steep and it's hard to climb them without thinking that you're going to fall over backwards and break your skull. By the time I climbed to the top I was feeling dizzy from spiralling around and around and around and around and around...

But I guess for this view it's pretty worth it.

St Andrew's from the top of the cathedral tower

A fine dusting of powder lies over the town

Although all of St Andrew's is built by the coast, St Andrew's Castle is really nice because it's right by the sea. Imagine having lived here 500 years ago in a castle by the sea - I sure wouldn't have minded being one of those fine princesses who lived here! Ha ha ha

We entered St Andrew's Castle through the gift shop and an exhibition that tells you all about the castle's history. It was while we were walking through the exhibition that outside started snowing hailing and raining all at the same time! We were reduced to hiding within the safety of indoors.

The sun that finally appeared after Armageddon weather.

Being a coastal town, St Andrew's has some really nice seafood, too. We had great seafood at the Tailend Restaurant and Bar on Market Street. Make no mistake - the best fish and chips in the comes from the coasts and far away from big cities!



Will you be going to St Andrew's when you visit Scotland?