St Andrews

This is the quadrangle of St Salvator's College and several academic departments are based here, though the university has abandoned the collegiate system for all but ceremonial purposes. Originally medieval, it became tumbledown and was rebuilt in Jacobean style in the 19th century. Its notable buildings are the college chapel, tower and tenement, and the Hebdomodar's building; St Salvator's Hall just east is a student residence built in the 1930s. The chapel, dating from 1450, conducts university services every Sunday, with staff and students in traditional garb. (The red gowns are for all undergrads except St Mary's; the slant at which they're worn denotes the student's year and subject.) After chapel, the students parade to the end of the pier to commemorate John Honey, who in 1800 hastened from the chapel to rescue five sailors from the stricken ship Janet. On North Street just outside the quad, the letters PH are set in the cobbles. Here Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake in 1528 for his Lutheran heresies, such as preaching that Gospel and Law are separate things. It's said to be bad luck to walk on the letters, and that students who do so will flunk - this curse may be expunged by bathing in the sea at dawn on 1st May (the May Dip).

St Mary's College has always been the theology school or Faculty of Divinity, and these undergrads wear black gowns, befitting their sober future as church ministers. Enter through the black iron gates inscribed "In Principio Erat Verbum:" the opening of John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word". Left of the gate is Lower Parliament Hall, where the Scottish Parliament relocated from plague-stricken Edinburgh 1645-6; it's now the university Debating Hall. The building on the left of the quad, formerly the library, is now the School of Psychology. The tree on the right side was planted by Mary Queen of Scots; she didn't plant the large oak tree in the centre. Far side of the quad is a ruined gateway, now being restored, into the 20th-century Bute Medical School.

Founded as the University Botanic Gardens in 1889 and now run by Fife Council, these are beautiful landscaped gardens, with different habitats (water garden, heath, peat, rock garden, Chinese, Chile garden). Eight glass houses hold orchids, cactus, alpine and tropical plants.

Museum about the history of St Andrews. Displays of old shops, furniture, art relating to local area, gardens, and souvenir shop.

Exhibiting golf through the ages, next to the famous course where the sport was first codified.

Aquarium with seals, fish, reptiles, penguins; feeding sessions and talks. Small building at street level, most of it's hidden below ground.

Museum about the history of St Andrews in a Victorian mansion. Also regular temporary exhibitions.

There's been a bishop's palace here since the 12th century, which successive armies wrecked; the present building is from 1400. It hosted royalty and also prisoners; in 1478 the unlucky Archbishop Patrick Graham was deemed insane and incarcerated in his own "palace". In 1546 during the Reformation, a Protestant preacher was burnt at the stake here, so his followers got in pretending to be building workers, lynched the cardinal, and barricaded themselves in. In the ensuing siege, a sapper-mine and counter-mine were dug through the underlying solid rock, which you can explore. The castle fell into disuse and in 1656 the burgh council took much of its material to re-build the pier. So it's now a picturesque shell in a great scenic location.