Melrose Abbey – Breakfast at the Bakery, Then the Ruins
A few hours.
The route
Twelve Triangles is a much-praised Edinburgh bakery, and its shop on Melrose's Market Square opens early, its counters full of pastries and slow-fermented sourdough baked daily.
Have breakfast there, then stroll up the street to Melrose Abbey, the town's great red sandstone ruin, as its gates open. It's an unhurried morning, and dogs are welcome too.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is The Scullery in Yarrow, 13 miles away. Sleeps 2; next free Fri 13 Nov to Sun 15 Nov.
Then The House in the Hill, 15 miles away. Sleeps 4; next free Thu 29 Oct to Sat 31 Oct.
The day
Melrose
A gentle morning in the middle of Melrose: something from the bakery on the Market Square, then an hour or so among the arches and carved stone of the abbey, a few minutes up the street.
About two and a half hours
Twelve Triangles
Breakfast
Breakfast is at Twelve Triangles, at 23 Market Square, which opens at 8am every day. Its pastries and sourdough are baked every day, to eat in or take away, and dogs are welcome. Come for about 9am and there's time to linger before the abbey opens. Driving in, park at the Abbey car park on Buccleuch Street, 3 minutes away: pay and display from 8.30am to 5pm, by card or the RingGo app. If Twelve Triangles is full, Apples for Jam, at 14 High Street just off the Square, opens from 8am every day too.
5 min on foot
Melrose Abbey
An attraction
It's 5 minutes' walk up Abbey Street to Melrose Abbey, founded in 1136 as the first Cistercian monastery in Scotland. Its roofless church rises in tiers of pointed arches and fine tracery in warm red sandstone, so look up for the carved saints and creatures high on the walls. A small memorial in the chapter house area marks where the heart believed to be Robert the Bruce's is buried. It opens every day at 10am from October to March and 9.30am in summer, with last entry half an hour before closing, and dogs on a lead are welcome outside the roofed parts. Two stone steps lead in; staff can show a level way from Cloisters Road. Allow about an hour.
If it rains
Most of the abbey is open to the sky, but the museum in the Commendator's House is indoors: on a wet morning take breakfast slowly, then see the museum before noon, when it shuts for two hours.
Burts Hotel, a restaurant in Melrose.