This morning I went to North Berwick with my friend James for the day. We had a really nice time walking around and exploring, and it was the perfect way to spend a Sunday!
North Berwick is on the East Coast of Scotland, just north of the border with England. It’s just a 30 or 40 minute train ride from Edinburgh, but it’s taken me until now to make it out there. I actually was in the area in July and went to Tantallon Castle, which is just a few miles outside North Berwick, but I never made it to the actual town.
The first thing we did after arriving to North Berwick was head straight for the Law, which is the big hill in town. It’s about the size of Arthur’s Seat, and I’ve wanted to climb it ever since I first spotted it from Edinburgh (you can see it from anywhere in Edinburgh tall enough to give you a good view of the Firth).
Before we even started climbing the hill, we found some ponies on the path. They were just wandering around, messing with each other and being cute.
I didn’t really look at the time at all during the day, but I’d say it took us about 20 minutes to get from the bottom of the hill to the top. It was really wet and muddy, which meant we had a to be careful not to slip or get blown off the hill. Once we got to the top, we explored a bit. There’s a bunker up there from WWII, and there’s also ruins from an old chapel.
 |
| View of the town through the ruins of the chapel |
 |
| From the top you can see Bass Rock (island on the left) and Tantallon castle to the right |
After exploring, we sat on top of the bunker for a while and looked out over the sea until our fingers were numb (really just mine).
We headed straight for a cafe from there so we could get some tea and warm up. We ended up at this place called Steampunk Coffee, which was this really cool cafe in an old warehouse. The decor was all very industrial and they had a very impressive selection of teas. I would definitely go back.
After we thawed a bit, we headed to the beach. We ended up eating our lunches we brought on the pier and looked out over the beach, the “skyline” and the Law while we ate.
 |
| The pier where we ate |
 |
| The view from the pier |
We then explored the beach a bit. The tide was low, so we walked out on the rocks that are underwater at high tide. We also climbed around on the boulders on the beach, which was quite fun.
Then we headed back to town to wander around. There wasn’t much open, since it was Sunday, but we did find a vintage store that we looked around for a little while. Right when we left the shop, it started to rain and it was starting to get dark, so we popped into the Ship Inn pub for a drink before we caught the train back.
We ended up having to drink our drinks kind of quickly and then head back to the train (and we didn’t really know where we were going). We made it back on the train just a couple minutes before it left, and we made it back to Edinburgh just before dinnertime.
I haven’t had such a lovely Sunday in a while. I hope to take some more exciting day trips this semester, because I’ve really missed exploring this beautiful country I live in.
