St Andrews

St Andrews occupies a low shelf of land on the east coast of Fife, boxed in by the Eden estuary to the north and the Kinness Burn to the south, with the North Sea filling the whole eastern horizon. The medieval plan has survived almost intact: three long streets, North Street, Market Street and South Street, run more or less parallel from the west end of town and converge on the ruined cathedral at the eastern tip, with narrow closes and wynds threading between them. It is a town you can cross on foot in twenty minutes, which is part of why so many people who come for a weekend end up staying a week.

Roughly seventeen thousand people live here, and during term time somewhere close to ten thousand students are added to that figure, which gives the place a distinct double life. From October to May the pubs and cafes are full of undergraduates in red gowns, the bookshops do a brisk trade and the pace is that of a working university town. From June to September the balance tips towards golfers, coach parties and families, and the queues form instead outside the ice cream shop on South Street. Both versions are worth seeing, and they feel like different towns.

What holds it all together is the setting. The West Sands runs for nearly two miles north from the golf courses, wide enough at low tide to lose a crowd in, and the smaller East Sands sits below the harbour on the other side of the headland. Between them the cathedral and castle ruins stand right on the cliff edge, so that the sea is rarely out of sight or earshot. East-coast light does a great deal of the work: clear and hard on a good day, and on others swallowed entirely by the haar, the cold sea fog that rolls in off the North Sea and can drop over the town in half an hour.

Top things to do in St Andrews

Most of the main sights sit within the old town and can be reached on foot, though a couple of the best days out are a short drive inland or down the coast.

• The Old Course — the most written-about links in golf, in continuous play since the fifteenth century. You do not need a tee time to appreciate it: the course is public land, the Swilcan Bridge and the eighteenth green are free to walk to, and on Sundays, when play stops, the whole thing becomes a public park.
• St Andrews Cathedral — once the largest church in Scotland and the seat of the medieval Scottish church, reduced to gable ends and a long spine of broken arcading after the Reformation. Climb St Rule's Tower alongside it for the best overview of the three streets and the coastline.
• St Andrews Castle — a clifftop ruin with two unusual survivals: the bottle dungeon cut down into solid rock, and the mine and counter-mine, a pair of siege tunnels from the 1540s that you can still crawl through.
• West Sands — the beach used for the opening sequence of Chariots of Fire, backed by dunes and the Eden estuary nature reserve. Long enough for a proper walk in any weather, and popular with kite-buggy and land-yacht crews when the wind is up.
• The University of St Andrews — founded in 1413 and the oldest in Scotland. St Salvator's Quadrangle on North Street is the set-piece, complete with the cobbled initials PH marking the spot where the student martyr Patrick Hamilton was burned in 1528.
• The R&A World Golf Museum — sensibly sized and genuinely interesting even to non-golfers, tracing the game from feathery balls to the modern professional tour, with a roof terrace looking straight down the first fairway.
• Craigtoun Country Park — two miles inland, a former estate garden with a boating lake, miniature railway and the Dutch Village folly on its island. The best rainy-afternoon-in-reserve option for anyone travelling with children.
• The Fife Coastal Path — the long-distance route passes through town. Head south from East Sands and you are on the cliffs above Kinkell Ness within twenty minutes, and at Kingsbarns and Crail within a good day's walking.

Getting to St Andrews

St Andrews has no railway station of its own; the branch line closed in 1969. The nearest station is Leuchars, five miles north-west, from where buses and taxis run into town in about ten to fifteen minutes. Leuchars is on the main east-coast line, so it is well served: trains from Edinburgh Waverley take a little over an hour, from Glasgow Queen Street around two hours with a change, and from London King's Cross around six hours, usually changing at Edinburgh. Dundee is twenty minutes up the line.

By road, most drivers from the south come up the M90 over the Queensferry Crossing, leave at Kinross or Milnathort and cut across on the A91 through Cupar. From the north, the A92 over the Tay Road Bridge from Dundee joins the same A91. Edinburgh to St Andrews is about fifty-five miles and normally takes an hour and a half; Glasgow is closer to two hours.

Parking in the centre is pay-and-display and tightly controlled, with the largest bays on North Street, Market Street and along the Bruce Embankment beside the golf courses. The Petheram Bridge car park on the western edge is the usual overflow and is only a five-minute walk from the shops. For airports, Edinburgh is the practical choice at around fifty miles by road, with Glasgow a longer alternative; Dundee's small airport is nearer but has very limited routes.

Best time to visit St Andrews

Spring is arguably the sweet spot. April and May are among the drier months on this coast, the gorse along the links turns bright yellow, and prices have not yet reached their summer level. It can still be cold when the wind comes off the sea, so bring more layers than the calendar suggests.

Summer brings the longest days, with light lingering until well after ten in late June, and the town at its liveliest, with the Lammas Market taking over the streets in August. It is also the busiest and priciest stretch, and the season when the haar is most likely to blot out an otherwise warm morning.

Autumn suits anyone who wants the beaches and the ruins without the crowds. September and early October often deliver the clearest weather of the year, though the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship fills the town and pushes room rates sharply upward for its week, so check the dates before booking.

Winter is quiet, cheap and atmospheric. The cathedral ruins in low sun and hard frost are worth the trip on their own, and the students returning in January keep the pubs busy. Expect short days, some seasonal closures among smaller attractions, and the occasional North Sea storm that makes the coastal path unwise.

Where to stay in St Andrews

The Scores, the clifftop terrace running above the castle towards the golf courses, is the prestige address: grand Victorian townhouses converted into hotels, most with sea views, and everything within a five-minute walk. It suits couples and anyone who wants to step out of the door straight onto the coast.

The Old Course end of town, around Golf Place, Pilmour Links and the Links Road, is where golfers base themselves. Rooms here command a premium for proximity, and the trade-off is early-morning activity outside the window.

Staying on or just off the three central streets puts you closest to the restaurants, pubs and shops, and is the best choice for a first visit or a short break without a car. Rooms tend to be smaller and older, and there is more street noise at weekends.

West of the centre, Hepburn Gardens, Kinburn and the roads around Murray Park hold most of the town's guest houses and B&Bs. It is quieter, parking is easier, and the walk in is ten minutes at most, which makes it good value for families and longer stays.

Outside town, the countryside towards Strathkinness and Mount Melville has a handful of country-house hotels and holiday parks, while the East Neuk villages, Crail, Anstruther and Pittenweem, are within half an hour and make an appealing base if you want harbours and fishing boats rather than gowns and fairways.

Food and drink in St Andrews

Fife eats well, and much of what appears on St Andrews menus is landed or grown within a few miles. Seafood comes ashore at Pittenweem and Anstruther, so crab, langoustine and hand-dived scallops are usually the thing to order; beef and lamb come off the farms inland, and the soft fruit in summer is excellent. Anster, a crumbly hard cheese made at Falside near Anstruther, turns up on cheeseboards all over town.

For a proper dinner, The Seafood Ristorante occupies a glass box on the Bruce Embankment with the sea directly below, while The Adamson on South Street does modern brasserie cooking in a former bank. The Vine Leaf is the long-standing local favourite for a quieter evening, and Forgan's on Market Street handles the informal end with Scottish sharing plates and, later on, ceilidhs. Six miles inland, The Peat Inn is the area's Michelin-starred destination and worth booking well ahead.

By day, Fisher & Donaldson on Church Street is an institution for its fudge doughnut, and Jannettas Gelateria on South Street has been making ice cream in the town for well over a century. Mitchell's Deli is the place to assemble a picnic before heading for West Sands. For drinking, Luvians has an unusually deep whisky range, and the distilleries at Kingsbarns, a few miles down the coast, and Eden Mill nearby both run tours and tastings. A monthly farmers' market brings Fife growers and producers onto Market Street, and is the easiest way to taste your way around the region in an hour.