First impressions

Fife holiday 2026 #1

I've recently returned from an excellent holiday in Scotland with a group of friends. Our aim was to walk some of the Fife Coastal Path, on the northern side of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh. We rented a large house in the fishing village of Crail, one of the East Neuk of Fife villages. This turned out to be ideal for the ten of us and a convenient base for getting around. The house, pictured above where the people are, had apparently been a shop at some stage and the dining room held this old print (below), though you can't tell what the shop sold. The village still has a few shops, so it was easy to get any supplies we needed. 

After a long journey, it was good to stretch my legs and start to explore - in the sunshine too! First impressions of the village were good. It was rather larger than I expected and still has some very old and interesting buildings. It is apparently one of Scotland’s oldest Royal Burghs, granted (I think) in 1178, which gave it the right to hold markets. Fishing has always played a big part in the local economy. Crail was noted in the middle ages for the export of salted herring and 'Crail Capons' - haddock dried in the sun or smoked by a fire. Much of its early trade was with the Netherlands, and there seem to be many clues to that link. Many of the buildings have pantiles and stepped gables such as you see on old Dutch and Flemish houses. 

Of course, I made my way pretty quickly down to the harbour, though at that point of the late afternoon the tide was out and the boats were beached. It's very attractive, with cobbled streets winding down to it and a scattering of cottages and buildings related to the fishing trade. 

Later, after dinner, a few of us took advantage of the light nights and evening sunshine and took a walk down to the harbour again, by which time the tide was coming in. It was lovely - I could say it 'floated our boats' with happy anticipation of the week to come. 

(My blog is now going to be flooded with 'holiday spam' for as long as it takes me to sort and organise my many photos!)