(Please note that I’m using the British way of naming this place: no period after “St” and no apostrophe in Andrews)

On this our last day in Scotland, only a small group of six of us went on the optional excursion to St Andrews, mostly known as a place for golf but also the site of Scotland’s oldest university.

Golf has been played at St Andrews since 1400, in a town with a population of 10,000 people. There are seven courses here, the largest public golf course complex in Europe. St Andrews considers itself the “Home of Golf.” When there are tournaments, 300,000 people show up!

There is a famous stone bridge called the Swilcan Bridge where Jack Nicklaus announced his retirement. Now tourists come and want their pictures taken on the same bridge.

We next traveled to the University of St Andrews, Scotland’s oldest university and in the top three of universities in the UK. This is where Prince William and Kate Middleton were students and lived in this dormitory.

It was a spectacular day in St Andrews as you can see by these pictures of the campus.

One of the first places we visited was the Chapel with its gorgeous 4-manual Hradetsky organ.

We returned to Edinburgh to get ready for our farewell dinner. But first, a bagpipe lesson with Louise Marshall, known as Louise the Piper. We were given practice chanters to learn the fingerings for the scale, but I found it difficult to reach the finger holes. You are to keep your fingers straight and only use the middle part of your fingers, not the tips. At the end I was finally able to play some notes as did most the people in our group. We sounded dreadful (!) but at least it was a fun activity.

Thanks for a lot of fun in Scotland, EF Go Ahead Tours!