Day 15 - Edinburgh to Pitlochry

Irene and Dennis had a lovely breakfast for us. They must think Americans eat like it is Thanksgiving everyday, because they were worried that we had only eaten scrambled eggs, toast, ham, fruit, tea and juice. “But don’t you want some tomatoes, sausage, white sausage, black sausage, waffles, potatoes—or how about a lovely haggis pie?” said Irene. She said her husband thought she was not feeding us enough. We assured them we were quite full. After breakfast, Irene sent us on our way reminding us to “make sure you remember which side of the road to drive on.” As we pulled away from Edinburgh, surprise, surprise, it began to rain.

We were headed for Fife via the Firth of Forth crossing. The Firth an estuary where the Forth River flows into the North Sea. Apparently, Matt was singing the song, “Firth of Fifth” by Genesis in his head while he was driving over the long bridge. We wound our way through some small country roads and arrived at a lovely little village called Burgh of Cullross, formerly known as The Royal Burgh of Fife. It is very unique in that the town looks exactly like a burgh would look in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The old buildings dating to 1626 and the narrow, cobblestone streets were idyllic. There are currently 395 residents. One interesting thing to note is that some windows are boarded with wood. This is because in the 1600 and 1700s, not only was glass an expensive commodity to have in a home, residents were charged a per window tax. Some could only afford to put in a few windows, but they built all the window frames into their home for the time when they could afford to have more windows put in place.

Our next stop was a Secret…but the Secret was no more… and after being declassified, the Secret Bunker from the Cold War was now open to the public as a museum. On every trip, we seem to do some historic war activity. We also usually find ourselves, at one point during the trip, in a very bizarre saturation. For the first time, these two events combined into one. Matt’s co-worker, Mick from Cork, told him about the Secret Bunker somewhere in Scotland. It sounded intriguing, but when we asked the Scots about it, no one had ever heard about it. The bunker is out in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. As we got closer to the secret location, the signage we came across made us think, “This will either be really cool or really stupid.”  

The secret site is surrounded by barbed wire. The cows were very curious to know what all the fuss was about. They wanted in on the secret too!

Here’s how the bunker story goes:  Back in 1993 a local man, named David, and his brother were out fishing. While driving along a back country road they noticed an advert that said, “Country House For Sale. 95,000 pounds.” They called to see the house and after being shown around, the realtor said, “I also have one other thing to show you. This farm house comes with a really big basement.” Beneath the innocent house was a bunker that went 135 meters into the ground. It had been the number one command post for Scotland during the Cold War. In 1993, its contents were removed and the site was put up for a bidding sale. They could not advertise that it was bunker, only inform those who showed an interest in the house. There were 6 offers. The ideas for the bunker ranged from turning it into a mushroom farm or a fishery to just filling it in and reclaiming the land. David and his brother put in their bid and stated they wanted to turn it into a museum. The state unanimously chose David as the new owner.

Once he got ownership, David made some inquiries, contacted the former Commanding Officer of the facility and told him he was the new owner. David was told that all the bunker’s contents were in storage along with photographs of each room from the day it was dismantled. The CO said he would give David every piece of inventory from the bunker for free along with the photographs so it could be put back exactly as it was. 10 military trucks showed up at the site and David assembled his museum.

The attention to detail at the bunker is exceptional. Everything is explained very well in each room. From a historical view, the accuracy was very educational and gave a clear understanding as to what a military command center dealt with on a daily basis during the cold war. Walking down into the bunker also gave a good idea of what it was like to live below ground. Everything was starting off to be a good educational experience. But then the warning sirens rang and we were summoned down to the 3rd level floor to the Command Center to experience a nuclear attack first hand.

David led us into the command center where he proceeded to give his educational talk about the facility. Again, everything seemed fine. But then he started the simulation and took on the roll of a Communications officer. We watched him pretend to receive a ticker tape coded message and decipher it. This was followed by him pretending to answer various phone calls for over 10 minutes. He then put on an army helmet that looked like an upside down soup bowl and frantically began to talk on two phones at once by holding one up to each ear simultaneously. It was a bit odd that he was basically playing dress-up with all the gear. Then the lights went down, David stepped out of his glass command center and told us the nuclear strike was coming (apparently that was what all the phone calls were about). The sirens rang out and there was a recording of rumbles. This was meant to simulate the sound of a nuclear strike occurring 20 miles away. The second round of sirens went off and a much louder and longer rumble was played. This was meant to simulate a near direct hit on the bunker. The entire scene felt like a Monty Python skit. Our educational museum had suddenly turned into an exercise in self-control on how not to catch the giggles. David took this demonstration very seriously. When it was done, he announced if any unwanted trespassers invaded the bunker, he could shoot them dead between the eyes since he was an expert marksmen. A series of Q&A followed which made us start to question if David thought it was still 1959.

We later ran into David while exploring more of the bunker and thanked him for preserving a piece of history. I wish we had not stopped to talk to him because he suddenly went from a guy we thought was a little quirky to someone of Uni-bomber potential due to his level of paranoia. 

Quotes from David that made us think he had been living in the bunker too long:

“Water contamination is an easy way for them to kill us all. Here at the bunker we distill our own water that has ZERO particles. It’s 100% pure. I drink it every day and I’m 85 (he was probably 50). The water down here needs to be perfect because if you are down here defending against a war, you can’t have soldiers getting sick from the water. I’ve been told I should bottle it and make my fortune.”

“WW3 is coming, but it’s not going to be nuclear, it’s going to be a chemical war or sound waves that will destroy us. They built a weapon that with one sound wave pulse can blow a plane to smithereens. They just built a new bunker that no missile can penetrate. I know where it is, but I can’t tell you.”

“Russia, China and Korea are the ones to look out for. They are going to join forces and get us all.”

“I’ll be safe in my bunker as long as they don’t send a missile that can pierce 135 meters of earth, steal and concrete. I even bought myself a second bunker. Can’t tell you where that is though. It’s classified for another 60 days.”

“America can’t back it’s currency with gold anymore so they are trying to back it up with oil. Oil is the new currency. You don’t know what a depression is until you run out of oil”

“You're from San Francisco?!?!?! That movie San Andreas looks quite concerning. Where would people be safe? You know the big one is coming right?” I tried to explain to David that the San Andreas fault could not produce a magnitude earthquake of more than 7.2 and because it is a deep, inland fault it is not capable of producing a tsunami. He did not buy it.

We left the bunker feeling very confused and not knowing really what to make of the entire experience. 

With the barbed wire fences of the Secret Bunker behind us, we made our way to St. Andrews. The town revolves around its University and Golf Courses. There is a large student population, so the town has a cool vibe. We popped into a little burger joint called The BlackHorn for lunch. The girl who took our order was from Boston and would be graduation from St. Andrews in 2 weeks with a degree in Sociology. The only beer they had on tap was Samuel Adams.. We asked if she was responsible for that? She smiled and said Yes.

After lunch we were walking back to the car to put more money in the meter. However, upon our arrival, the meter man was already there. I was sure he was giving us a ticket, but instead he said, “No worries. You are only 5 minutes late and I’m done with this section. I won’t be back to check again in an hour so you don’t need to add more money.” That is a very different attitude from any meter person I’ve ever encountered. He told us to have a nice day and pointed the way to the Old Course.

Everything in St. Andrews is in walking distance of each other which is nice. The ruins of St. Andrew’s Cathedral still inspires pilgrims to make the journey and touch her walls. It still felt elegant, beautiful and peaceful. It had been a Catholic Cathedral and they said every road in Scotland led to it. It was built in 1158. However, during the Scottish Reformation in 1559, the Calvinist burned and gutted the cathedral. By 1561 it had fallen into ruin and was never rebuilt.

From the cathedral, we walked along the coast to The Old Course at St. Andrews. We watched the players finish at the 18^th hole. Historically, It was cool to be standing at the birthplace of golf, even though I am not a golf buff. However It did not look “ritzy” by any means, especially when you watched the players share a green. For such an exclusive and elitist club, it visually did not seem to match. The young caddies were rather cute though. If you want to play golf here and you are not a member, you have to reserve your game time 18 months in advance. I went into the Official Pro Shop thinking I could get my Mom something, but it was way too expensive. A simple polo shirt with The Old Course emblem was $150 USD! Mom will not be getting a shirt.

From St. Andrews, we made our way to the little town of Pitlochry. Pitlochry is the cutest little town. However, without GPS, there is no way we would have ever found the B&B. The B&B also did not have their sign up, so upon our arrival I was concerned we might be walking up to a random person's home. Fortunately, Mary, the owner, came promptly to the door and greeted us with smiles. She showed us to our room and gave us a dinner recommendation along with a map showing her favorite evening walk along the river. The room was the nicest B&B I’ve ever stayed in. The room was huge. It felt like being in the top room of a dollhouse. The bathroom was equally large. Everything was just so pretty and feminine.

From the B&B, we walked to the town center. It was 8:00 and the shops were closed. We had dinner at Victoria’s as per Mary’s recommendation. It was the best meal of the last 2 weeks…Grilled salmon, Pesto Mashed potatoes, asparagus, green beans and sweet peas and a nice glass of wine. It was a bit of a splurge for us, but well worth it.

After dinner, we walked along the river. It was still daylight at 10:30 and many locals were out walking or fly flshing. It was nice to return to the B&B after a long day.