Elie is a very colourful town. Colourful and jumbly. Its streets - some
narrow, some broad - are lined with all manner of cottages painted in
bright colours, blue and red and green and pink and yellow and white. It
is utterly beautiful.
The name of its adjacent cousin, Earlsferry (although Elie and
Earlsferry like to think of themselves as individual places with the
latter being more regal than the former, these days they are joined at
the hip and essentially one and the same), is said to take its name from
'the boatmen who ferried Macduff across the Firth when he was fleeing
from the fury of Macbeth.'
There's not much in the way of what you might term ticket-paying tourist
attractions or 'experiences', and that's a good thing. I think the
unspoken consensus of opinion is that being by the sea is attraction
enough, and in the case of Elie, and Earlsferry, that is most
certainly the case. It is a place where time stands still, and long
moments may be spent doing nothing more than looking. You can sit on a
bench and look across the wide Firth of Forth towards many far-off hazy
features, like the pimple of North Berwick Law. Or you may look up at
the sky and let your mind be soothed. For Elie is a place to truly relax
in. You may even
stroll along the golden beach keeping your eyes peeled for 'rubies', or
small garnets, which are said to be found right here. And you may stroll
into the delightful innards of Elie's Ship Inn to quaff fine ale, munch
good food, and ponder such matters as, 'Who the heck was Macduff?'