Our day off yesterday and looking at the weather a few days before it was not looking good. Another rainy day so what shall we do.

Someone had said they had gone to Stirling and it was nice and suggested going to Culross. So a look on the map and route planned we decided to head for Culross. The weather looked better over that way also so we were on a winner to start with.

Culross sits on the edge of the Firth of Forth and is Scotlands most complete example of a burg of the 17th and 18th centuries. White Harled houses with red tiled roofs line the steep cobbled streets. The streets run from the market place to the hilltop abbey.

Culross was made famous for the filming of Outlander which is a perfect setting for it. It also has the Culross palace, a national trust property which was once the home to Sir George Bruce.

The journey for us to get there was about one hour and twenty minutes, so sat nav set and off we went. Now the sat nav is ok in the car but has sent us on some strange roads before and it didn’t fail this time.

I had looked on google maps and could see which car park I wanted to get to and which direction I would be coming from. But sat nav had other ideas as we turned off the main road onto a single track road with grass in the middle and then came into view of Culross abbey and headed off down the cobbled streets of Culross.

If you have ever watched the film the Italian job where the three mini cars race around the small streets trying to get out then you will know how we felt. Luckily we didn’t meet another car coming the other way.

We did make it to the car park where I wanted to park and had a good laugh about it. Parking was free which is always a bonus. We have found a lot of free parking in Scotland. Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind paying a reasonable fee to park, but I think if the parking is free you are more likely to spend more time in the place and spend money which benefits the place you are in.

Our first port of call was the Culross palace and walking there from the carpark we passed some lovely old houses, you could just imagine all those years ago when Culross would have been a thriving and bustling port and all the steam, smoke and noise from the salt panning and mining was in the air.

I love the old houses with big stones around the windows and doors, really solid looking and I love old doors. The history of those doors over the years, all the people that would have walked through them.

The palace like all national trust properties is so interesting and again you can imagine life inside these old buildings years and years ago.

As you walk around inside you can imagine someone sitting in the chair next to the fire and slowly nodding off after a hard days work. A hard days work for Sir George Bruce would be counting his money in his palace while the men and ladies who worked the mines and salt pannings would be in the houses. But he did pay them well apparently.

After looking around the palace it was time for us to eat lunch. Spoiling ourselves again we opted to eat lunch out and found a little cafe called the Biscuit cafe which was very nice.

After a lovely lunch it was a small walk up Kirk street to the Abbey. When I say a small walk it was a small walk but up a hill and the first part on the cobbled streets we already knew from driving down them. Funnily enough when we were walking up to the abbey no cars come down the streets so it’s quite obvious a lot of cars have better sat navs built into them than ours. We passed some more lovely old cottages and houses.

Culross abbey was built in the 1200s and is where Sir George Bruce and his family have a tomb house that was fully restored in 1905. A wonderful old abbey with a fantastic old graveyard next to it.

The graveyard was also very old and every headstone was tilted over and some were even just laying down. Years and years of settling.

The walk back from the abbey to the village was all downhill and as we walked along the road towards the carpark we passed the old pier which years ago would have been a lot bigger and stronger and very busy. Today it sits there and the odd fishing boat uses it and people like me cross the railway line, yes you have to cross a railway line to get to it, to see it and get a photo of it.

So that was our day out. Again no blue sky in the photos but it all adds to the atmosphere of such an old place. The last photo I love being a classic car outside a classic old cottage. I wonder if the owners live the old life.