Finding quiet in the East Neuk

There is a particular kind of quiet you only get on the east coast of Fife. It is not silence — the wind is always doing something, gulls are always doing something — but the noise of the world pulls back a step, and you notice things you had stopped noticing.

We had walked out of Elie mid-afternoon, later than planned, boots still stiff from the morning. The tide was on its way out. A dog was chasing a stick that its owner kept underthrowing on purpose. The path turned inland briefly, past the old kirk, then dropped back down to the shore.

You come here expecting a long walk. You leave having had a long conversation with yourself.

The middle bit

Most people ask about the start and the end of the Fife Coastal Path — the Forth bridges, the Tay. But the middle is where the walk actually happens. The East Neuk villages sit close enough that you are always about to arrive somewhere, and far enough apart that you have time to earn it.

"The path knows what it is doing. Your job is to keep up."

We stopped for coffee in St Monans, then again, unreasonably, in Pittenweem. Both times the woman behind the counter asked where we were headed and both times we said Crail, and both times she nodded like we had made a sensible choice.

Arriving in Crail

By the time we reached Crail the light had that late-afternoon quality that makes every stone wall look better than it has any right to. We sat on the harbour for twenty minutes and did nothing in particular, which is the whole point.