Droning bagpipes, a soul-stirring fort and a 335-million-year-old volcano set with Highland-in-miniature lochs, toothy ruins and spiny crags. Nowhere stimulates the senses fairly like Edinburgh.
The choice to return to the Scottish capital has all the time been straightforward. It’s simply getting an entire lot extra sophisticated to work out the place to remain. Lodging was a binary selection between chintzy, 5 star baronial resorts or bargain-basement manufacturers. Not any longer. Fancy a Michelin-star dinner winner or a mattress in a dock-rocking former lighthouse tender? You’ll discover all of it right here and extra.
One of the best boutique resorts in Edinburgh are:
10 of one of the best Edinburgh boutique resorts
Present all 10
Neighbourhood: Calton Hill
(21212)
When chef proprietor Paul Kitching and his companion Katie O’Brien unveiled this restaurant with rooms on what was the incorrect aspect of Calton Hill, it was a pivotal second for Edinburgh. Their imaginative and prescient was to marry one of the best of Scottish produce with refined, if barely eccentric, hospitality, carving out a singular house within the capital. Nobody has achieved it higher since.
The primary purpose to return is Kitching’s Michelin-starred kitchen. With out fail, each week sees the arrival of a brand new menu, with Dali-esque dishes going all-out to flummox you. Anticipate the likes of haggis porridge, trout with tea crumpets, or English breakfast risotto, earlier than heading upstairs to the attractive cocktail bar and 4 bedrooms – all with comfortable lounge, attractive bathtubs and chocolate-coloured trimmings.
Worth: Doubles from £150
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Neighbourhood: Leith
(Fingal)
Everybody loves the thought of being rocked to sleep by the lapping sea. The truth is just a little completely different at this superbly restored former lighthouse tender, now berthed in a sheltered mooring on Leith’s Albert Dock Basin. The 237-footer has had a severely glam refit and is elegant, formidable and each inch the floating palace.
Up the gangway, there are 23 rooms, all with cruise cabin furnishings and sloping flooring, however the true spectacle might be discovered within the public areas. There’s a high deck Artwork Deco restaurant-cocktail bar, with glitzy gold ceiling and jazz soundtrack. The hull has been recast as a lavish ballroom and the ceiling of the engine room has been peeled again to type one of many corridors. The temper is exultant and well-mannered, however what would you count on from the identical homeowners because the close by Royal Yacht Britannia?
Worth: Doubles from £300
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Neighbourhood: Royal Mile
Should you received any nearer to Edinburgh Citadel, you’d be sleeping in it. That’s simply one of many USPs at this dolly combination of townhouses, all of which cover palatial apartment-style rooms which can be extra atmospheric, extra amped-up – dare I say it, much more macabre – than these secreted within the royal stronghold subsequent door.
Get up in a mix of camp four-poster boltholes straight from a fancy dress drama or extra intriguing gothic suites full of playful nooks, crannies and creaky furnishings. Should you like your bed room to have a turret or battle armour, then that is the place. Desire a personal library? You possibly can have a kind of, too. One of the best bit is it’s all on the doorstep of the tartan-and-toffee-tin spectacle of the Royal Mile, town’s wonkily good road of tolbooths and trapped-in-time townhouses.
Worth: Doubles from £345, together with full breakfastthewitchery.com
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Neighbourhood: Calton Hill
(Rock Home)
The postcard vantage level from Calton Hill, searching throughout the Gothic spire of the Scott Monument and Edinburgh Citadel, is the explanation many individuals come to Scotland’s capital. It’s a view that’s additionally just a few steps away from the entrance door of this well-hidden retreat, positioned midway up Calton Hill.
Nice for teams of pals, this 14-bed interval service provider’s home comes with a terrace condo and photographers’ studio, with every cleverly designed to really feel each fashionable and timeless. The lofty location can’t be overwhelmed, nevertheless it’s the delicate touches of the property’s historical past – which seize moments from the historical past of Scottish images and artwork – which can be the standouts.
Worth: Rooms from £70
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Neighbourhood: Murrayfield
(Dunstane Homes)
The Orkney Islands are by no means removed from thoughts at this uber-stylish lodge caught between the moneyed swagger of the west finish and Scotland’s nationwide rugby stadium. The homeowners moved south from the islands some years in the past and it’s as if they bottled the islanders’ famend happiness and took it with them.
The Victorian-era home has a selection of 16 rooms – a keep-you-guessing mixture of conventional Orcadian touches and modern design flashes – whereas days might be spent lounging on extravagantly cozy beds, taking tea out on the entrance garden, or soaking within the freestanding Victorian baths. A potter alongside the close by Water of Leith pathway to well-to-do Stockbridge can also be extremely really useful.
Worth: Doubles from £227
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Neighbourhood: Metropolis centre
(Eden Locke)
If the Scottish capital had extra locations like this, then Edinburgh’s Airbnb listings would expertise a bookings stoop. This Georgian-era six-storey townhouse begins with a welcoming foyer and laptop-friendly cafe-bar, earlier than introducing a collection of serviced apartment-style rooms blueprinted by a New York structure agency – most with mod-con kitchens, sofas and loads of storage space and bumper home windows with views of George Avenue. Come 5pm, the realm springs to life with the eating places, pubs and bars packing out, notably so on neighbouring Thistle and Rose Streets.
Worth: Studio residences from £108
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Neighbourhood: Prestonfield
(Prestonfield Home)
If Bonnie Prince Charlie and Alexander McQueen had gone into the interiors enterprise, this peaceable retreat could be the end result. Extra baronial manor home than lodge, this one-of-a-kind keep is just a few kilometres from town centre, but a world aside by way of vibe. Highland cows and preening peacocks hand around in the property’s fields and entrance lawns; kilted doormen wait on you hand and foot; and huntsman armchairs and Snow White mirrors compete on your consideration within the lounges. Rooms are available in a catwalk scheme of burlesque pink and kitsch purple with the odd splash of electrical pink, plus there’s top-notch meals and a tummy-tickling cream tea with all of the trimmings.
Worth: Doubles from £345
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Neighbourhood: Stockbridge
(The Raeburn)
When it opened in 2014, The Raeburn had been a very long time coming. Nicely-heeled Stockbridge locals, with their spoil of fabulous eating places, gentrified knick-knack outlets and Sunday farmers’ market, wanted a neighborhood hideout for boozy beer backyard afternoons and wet day meals. And this 10-room Georgian mansion delivered.
In placing distance of town’s greatest feel-like-a-local sights (particularly the Royal Botanical Backyard and Inverleith Park), The Raeburn is ideal for out-of-towners. Begin with fish and chips on the buzzy brasserie downstairs – or people-watch with a pint out entrance if there’s a glimmer of solar – then head upstairs to rooms that tick all of the containers. Rainforest showers, humongous TVs, espresso machines all come as customary.
Worth: Doubles from £150
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Neighbourhood: New City
(The Stevenson Home)
Leafing by way of the pages of a basic novel might nicely maintain you indoors at this storied Georgian townhouse at 17 Heriot Row – notably if it’s Treasure Island, Kidnapped or Jekyll and Hyde. Creator Robert Louis Stevenson grew up on this early Nineteenth-century B&B from the age of six and all of the romance of his novels comes alive when sitting among the many antiques and interval furnishings of his former dwelling.
Unusually, there are simply two rooms to choose from, however that’s as a result of it’s nonetheless lived in by native household John and Felicitas Macfie. The brass bell pull by the doorway says all of it: “Personal home – not a museum”. Our choose is the main bedroom with William Morris wallpaper and Victorian tub, and for an additional private contact the homeowners provide insightful personal excursions round city.
Worth: Rooms from £115
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Neighbourhood: Metropolis centre
(Tigerlily)
Need to occasion? You’ll possible spot the queues on the chi-chi basement cocktail bar earlier than you realise that is additionally an extravagantly designed lodge kitted out with loads of night-out frills. With hair straighteners and an in-room music playlist to get the occasion began, transfer on to a cocktail class on the seen-to-be-seen bar downstairs, then recuperate with the morning-after on-demand DVD library and in-room breakfast.
The doubles and suites are as bling as you’d count on, with in-your-face color schemes, plush sofas and heavenly beds, and there are many different sudden design quirks. How a couple of Georgian suite with comfortable fire? Or a room that’s adorned from flooring to ceiling in black? Come for the situation and occasion fireworks – simply don’t count on a quiet evening out.
Worth: Doubles from £180
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