Berwick upon Tweed; Monday, 26 January, 2009

I was up and out of the hotel relatively early to get down to the station to catch the train to North Berwick. You would have thought that North Berwick would be pretty close to Berwick upon Tweed, sharing as they do a common name. And to some extent they are, there is probably not more than 40 miles that separate them, the only problem is that to get from one to the other you have to go all the way into Edinburgh and back out again!

Having finally reached North Berwick, nearly two hours after leaving Berwick upon Tweed, I wandered down to the town centre to catch the bus to my first attraction of the day.

North Berwick is situated at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and is the first major settlement after the coast has turned into the Firth. In it’s recent past its been a holiday destination, but longer ago it was an important strong-hold and the surrounding land is littered with castles and fortifications, my trip today was to see two of them.

I had originally considered walking to all the sites, as they are not more than a couple of miles from North Berwick, but it had dawned on me a couple of days ago that I had not given myself enough time when I had booked my return ticket from Edinburgh, so I had only a little over four hours in North Berwick to squeeze everything in, hence the reason that a few minutes after arriving in North Berwick I was already leaving it on the bus heading to my first castle.

Dirleton is a couple of miles West of North Berwick, and the site of the first castle of the morning. Having looked around that I managed to time it just right to catch the bus back into North Berwick and on up out of town to the supermarket.

The reason for heading to the supermarket was not to do a bit of shopping, but to let the bus do the difficult work of climbing up to the cliffs above the town, where the supermarket is conveniently located, from here it was a relatively flat two mile walk to the second castle, Tantallon.

Tantallon is sited on the cliffs overlooking the very turn of the coast, hence the impressive nature of the building and, on a clear day such as today, the stunning views out over the Firth.

Having taken in the views I started the walk back towards the supermarket. I got back a couple of minutes after the previous bus has left, so I decided to walk down the hill (which, lets face it is a lot easier than walking up the hill!) into North Berwick and have a look around the town centre, taking in the harbour and the beaches, before heading back to the station and my train back to Edinburgh.

Thankfully, the connection on the return leg was a little longer than it was on the outward leg, so I was able to grab a bite to eat, I’d been feeling hungry since shortly after leaving Tantallon castle, and the long walk hadn’t made things any better. After a quick bite it was back on the train and back to the other Berwick for the walk back up to the hotel and a very relaxing bath.