Fife and Angus: Places to Explore

Dating back to the Dark Ages, this market town was completely transformed by the Industrial Revolution, which lined its streets with mills and factories. The 20th century saw the closing of most of these... Read more

You can rejoin the hurly-burly of the A90 for the return journey south from Montrose or Brechin; the more pleasant route, however, leads southwesterly on minor roads (there are several options) that travel... Read more

Anstruther, locally called Ainster, has a lovely waterfront with a few shops brightly festooned with children's pails and shovels, a gesture to summer vacationers.... Read more

You can find traditional boatbuilding in the fishing town of Arbroath. It also has several small curers and processors, and shops sell the town's most famous delicacy, Arbroath smokies—whole haddock... Read more

The small market town of Brechin has a cathedral that was founded around 1200 and contains an interesting selection of antiquities, including the Mary Stone, a Pictish relic.... Read more

The oldest and most aristocratic of East Neuk burghs, pretty Crail is where many fish merchants retired and built cottages. The town landmark is a picturesque Dutch-influenced town house, or tolbooth,... Read more

Cupar is a busy market town with several interesting sites, including a museum about Fife.... Read more

Dundee makes an excellent base for exploring Fife and Angus at any time of year. The West End—especially its main thoroughfare Perth Road—pulses with life, with intimate cafés and excellent... Read more

One of the loveliest communities in Scotland, Falkland is a royal burgh of twisting streets and crooked stone houses.... Read more

Forfar goes about its business of being the center of a farming hinterland without being preoccupied (or even that interested in) tourism.... Read more

Set in rolling countryside is the little village of Glamis (pronounced glahms).... Read more

Kirriemuir stands at the heart of Angus's red-sandstone countryside and was the birthplace of the writer J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), best known abroad as the author of Peter Pan (a statue of whom you can... Read more

Scotland's largest Lowland loch, Loch Leven is famed for its fighting trout. The area is also noted for abundant bird life, particularly its wintering wildfowl. Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to sign... Read more

Lower Largo's claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), the Scottish sailor who inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Once a juvenile delinquent, he grew up to terrorize... Read more

The historic village of Meigle, nestled in the rich agricultural land of the Strathmore Valley, is well known to those with an interest in Pictish stones. Said to be built upon an 11th century Pictish... Read more

An unpretentious and attractive town with a museum and a selection of shops, Montrose sits beside a wide estuary known as the Montrose Basin. The town's museum—housed in a neoclassical building that... Read more

Many examples of East Neuk architecture serve as the backdrop for the working harbor at Pittenweem. Look for the crowstep gables, white harling (the rough mortar finish on walls), and red pantiles (roof... Read more

It may have a ruined cathedral and a grand university—the oldest in Scotland—but the modern claim to fame for St. Andrews is mainly its status as the home of golf. Forget that Scottish kings... Read more