Dunfermline 

Several things about Dunfermline

a)  It is a difficult word to spell – somehow however many times I write it I still get it wrong.

b) The first poem I ever learned by heart was “The king sat in Dunfermline Toon, drinking the blood red wine”

c) It is rather beautiful in parts, but like Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes, made hideous for drivers by fast dual carriageways with spiral roundabouts every 2 miles, and horrible junctions on the other roads which are distorted to accommodate these monsters.  Halbeath Road, and whatever that roundabout near the station with the arches is called are the worst examples but there are others.

d) The “City” railway station is a long way from the shops and bars, there is no buffet and when we there, the waiting room was locked.

Apart from that – J and I went to Dunfermline today and in general had a great time.  The intention was to walk part of the Fife Pilgrim way to Cairneyhill Parish Church five miles away with the “Pilgrim Pastor”.  We started off in the Abbey Church.  This is where Robert the Bruce (minus his heart which set off on an independent voyage to the Holy Land) is buried.  There is also a famous Tiffany stained glass window.

Outside – you can see the ruins of the Abbey.

The walk was pleasant enough – we met the resident artist for Pilgrim month and a nice American lady from Boston (amongst others).  The scenery was a bit average – just rather flat fields after some initial parkland.  I did make a new friend though.

Cairneyhill church was pretty and then we took the bus back to town – this illustrated my premier gripe with buses, as without the presence of the other people from the walk, I would have had zero knowledge of where to get off.  Then J and I had lunch and then went to the Dunfermline museum and gallery.  The museum was pretty good as was the gallery.  Interestingly the building is horrible from the outside, entirely out of keeping with the church behind it, but it is nice instead and there are wonderful views from the windows.

The best thing we saw all day was the entrance gate to the Abbey

We had been going to go to Andrew Carnegie’s house, but J had acquired a sore foot, so we thought we would walk to the station and have a coffee or nourishing libation when we got there (J was for the nourishing libation), but the station was right down a hill and when we got there there was nothing but houses.  No shops, no bars, no buffet and the waiting room was locked.

So we used the first part of our ticket to go to Inverkeithing where we change trains.  Right out in the middle of nowhere again.  But this time there the waiting room was open – and there was a coffee kiosk (closed).  I walked up the hill out of the station to look for the “Majestic Tearoom” – I found it and it was closed as well.  So I got some water and biscuits from a vending machine, nearly cutting my hand of in the process, and we waited out another 35 minutes on the platform.

This delightful journey cost us £36 for the train tickets – anyone who says “use public transport” needs to take on board the fact that the car would have taken half the time and cost about £5.