Welcome to St. Andrews! Welcome to the home of golf! Welcome to the Kingdom of Fife!
We arrived in St. Andrews, Kingdom of Fife just after 3:00 p.m. As usual, we did not have any hotel reservation, so we went straight to the Tourist Information Centre. We booked a room at the New Hall of the University of St. Andrews instead of a hotel.
We booked the room at the New Hall of the University of St. Andrews at the North Haugh even without seeing the place because of its private car park. Most of the hotels at St. Andrews have limited parking spaces. Even those expensive nicely located hotels have side street parking only, not really a private car park.
Aside from that, I also loved the idea of staying at the the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in Britain. And since it was a university, I was also hoping for an internet connection.
When we were checking-in at the New Hall, I asked the lady at the reception about the internet. She told me that there was none and she was so apologetic about it. She asked us to fill out the evaluation form before we check-out so that the management will know that the New Hall being part of the University of St. Andrews should also have an internet connection. The other buildings of the university have internet connection but there was none at the New Hall.
After we checked-in, we just rested for a while, and then went around the area afterwards. We had our dinner at Sands Grill Restaurant at the Old Course Hotel, a golf resort and spa in St. Andrews overlooking the 17th hole of the St. Andrews Links Old Course.
The next few days, Friday until Sunday, we played golf at St. Andrews Links, at the Strathtyrum Course, at the New Course, and at the Eden Course but not at the Old Course.
Every after a game of golf, we also went around the area as we went out for dinner everyday. Aside from New Hall and Sands Grill Restaurant, we also ate at Peppercorns Grill Restaurant, Bella Italia Caffe Bar Ristorante, and Maisha, an authentic Indian and Seafood Restaurant. The restaurants were all located in St. Andrews.
We went out everyday but we did not really visit a lot of the historic places, castles and museums in St. Andrews except the British Golf Museum.
It was just about playing golf in St. Andrews, the home of golf. I think, most golfers dream to be able to play golf in St. Andrews particularly at the Old Course.
But even if we were not able to play at the Old Course, it was worth it. We have a very good reason then to go back to Scotland especially in St. Andrews.