Touring through Fife, you will notice a distinctive style to much of the architecture, especially in the charming coastal villages. Their cottages and most of Fife's older buildings reveal strong links with the Low Countries where sixteenth century trade, before links with the Americas were established, was a key element to Scotland's economy. Ships loaded with wool, cloth, timber and fish were sent across the North Sea and often returned with the distinctive red roofing pantiles loaded as ballast.

The views approaching Fife from the road or rail bridges are stirring, particularly looking down on the village of North Queensferry which appears in miniature from the bridge spans passing high above it. To investigate further, leave the motorway at the first exit in Fife or, if you are enjoying a rail excursion from Edinburgh, disembark at North Queensferry. The village was the centuries-old northern terminal for a ferry crossing established by Queen Margaret to carry pilgrims to nearby Dunfermline. With its other landfall at South Queensferry, this service lasted for nearly 800 years until the road bridge was opened in 1964.

Culross once was one of Scotland's major trading ports due mainly to the enterprises of one man, Sir George Bruce, a sixteenth century coal and salt merchant as well as a descendant of Robert the Bruce. The 'palace', situated to the left of the main square, was built for Sir George and his family in 1577. The structure reflected the wealth Bruce had accumulated through his local colliery along with the simultaneous production of coarse salt. In more recent times, Culross Palace was bought a year after the National Trust for Scotland was formed in 1932 for the amazing sum of £700.

Dunfermline was one of the most important ancient Scottish capitals until the time of James VI of Scotland (James I of England) and the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Lying 2 miles (3km) inland from the Firth of Forth, it is today a main focus of commercial activity for south-west Fife, situated as it is near the M90 motorway. Its narrow town-centre streets are usually busy, mainly with 'Fifers' going about their business, a fairly typical lowland market town but with a particularly rich heritage.

Most of the important areas of Dunfermline can be explored by foot and there is ample sign-posted car-parking near the abbey and its historic precincts. Approaching the town by car from the south under the high railway viaducts, your eye is drawn to the central elevation on which sits Dunfermline Palace and Abbey. The words 'King Robert the Bruce' can be seen like an early advertising hoarding, carved in huge stone letters surrounding the balustrade of the nineteenth century parish church which nestles alongside the abbey.

The largely ruined Dunfermline Abbey and Palace was a great Benedictine house built in the time of King Malcolm Canmore (1005-1034) by his wife, Margaret. Queen Margaret was instrumental in the reformation of the nation from Celtic religious practices to Catholic. The present site is a loose arrangement bringing together buildings of several eras, the ruined monastery and palace with their romantic aura standing next to a much restored and more austere nineteenth century church.