Scotland Guide
Central Scotland
The East Neuk
Extending south of St Andrews as far as Largo Bay, the East Neuk is famous for its series of quaint fishing villages replete with crow-stepped gables and red pan-tiled roofs, the Flemish influence in the architecture indicating a history of strong trading links with the Low Countries. The area is dotted with windy golf courses, and there are also plenty of bracing coastal paths, including the waymarked Fife Coastal Path: tracing the shoreline between St Andrews and the Forth Rail Bridge, it's at its most scenic in the East Neuk stretch.
CRAIL is the archetypally charming East Neuk fishing village, its maze of rough cobbled streets leading steeply down to a tiny stone-built harbour surrounded by piles of lobster creels, and with fishermen's cottages tucked into every nook and cranny in the cliff. Though often populated by artists at their easels and camera-toting tourists, it is still a working harbour, and if the boats have been out you can buy fresh lobster and crab cooked to order from a small wooden shack on the harbour edge.
ANSTRUTHER is the largest of the East Neuk fishing harbours, but it too has an attractively old-fashioned air and no shortage of character in its houses and narrow streets. It's home to the wonderfully unpretentious Scottish Fisheries Museum (April– Oct Mon– Sat 10am–5.30pm, Sun 11am–5pm; Nov– March Mon– Sat 10am–4.30pm, Sun noon–4.30pm; £5). It's also the staging point for the rugged Isle of May, now a nature reserve and bird sanctuary.