St. Andrew's Cathedral

I was awake early this morning and was treated to the most incredible sunrise. I didn't even have to leave the warm confines of our room to enjoy this!

Today we headed north going over the Firth of Forth Bridge, traveled through Perth and finally ending up in Dundee.

Our first destination was Dumferline Abbey and Castle. Since today is Sunday there was a service going on and we were unable to get any photos of inside the church itself. But it was great to actually see a completely intact abbey. So impressive!

From Dumferline castle we traveled to Aberdour Castle, which dates back to the early 1100's, making Aberdour one of the two oldest datable standing castles in Scotland. The collapsed part of the south wall (seen on the left side of photo) also formerly contained an early 13th-century style double-lancet window. It boasts one of the largest dovecot (pigeon house) in Scotland.

Also at the site of Aberdour castle was St. Fillan's Church. It seems likely that parts of St Fillan's church date back to at least 1123, possibly even predating the neighboring castle with which its history is so closely entwined. The original church comprised just the nave and chancel. The north wall of today's church and much of the chancel are likely having been part of this first structure.

From Aberdour we traveled to St. Andrew's where we toured the castle ruins and the cathedral ruins. Wow! Is all I can say about these cathedral ruins. Again, I was impressed by the enormity of the site. It's so hard to imagine what this cathedral would have looked like or even how it was built. It was absolutely grand in scale. This photo shows only a portion of the site. The tower on the right is from St. Rules Church, which was a forerunner to this great cathedral, and drew pilgrims to the shrine of St. Andrew. A marker here says that the relics of St. Andrew included 3 fingers of the right hand, an upper arm bone, a kneecap, and a tooth!

R has posted a photo from the top of the tower.