Undiscovered Scotland

 

"50 Gems of Fife" by Jack Gillon is a nicely written and illustrated book that is destined to find a home in the glovebox of our car whenever we're planning to drive north across the Queensferry Crossing. We'd highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Fife because, however well you think you know the area, you'll find something new and of interest here. It's certainly a book that should be considered essential reading by anyone planning to spend any time in Fife.

You get a good sense of the book from its rear cover: "The historic county of Fife is a natural peninsula on the east coast of Scotland, bordered by the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay. Alongside its three largest settlements of Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes it is also home to the ancient city of St Andrews, with its world-famous golf course and university. The often turbulent history of Fife is reflected in its royal palaces, castles and other ruins, such as Ravenscraig Castle and Dunfermline Abbey. Fife’s picturesque coast draws visitors to places like Crail Harbour and Pittenweem. Fife’s cultural and industrial heritage are also celebrated, including the Fife Folk Museum, the Anstruther Fisheries Museum and the Fife Heritage Railway. 50 Gems of Fife explores the many places and their history that make this part of Scotland so special, including natural features, towns and villages, buildings and places of historical interest. Alongside justly famous attractions, others will be relatively unknown, but all have an interesting story to tell."

You get an even better sense of the book when you open the cover. It does exactly what it suggests it does: it provides information about and colour photographs of the author's selection of 50 visitor attractions in Fife. Any selection of this sort has to be a subjective one, but the author's choice doesn't obviously exclude anything we'd have included in our list of top attractions in Fife. And it does include quite a few we've not been to and some we didn't know about. Hence the thought that we're very likely to be putting "50 Gems of Fife" to practical use as we track down and visit some of those that will be novel to us. Other readers will certainly want to do the same!