Edinburgh rewards people who look up and turn off. The main thoroughfares are handsome enough, but the hotels worth booking are tucked into the Georgian townhouses of the New Town and the wynds of the Old, behind doors you would walk past without a second glance. A city bolthole is a different proposition from a country inn, and Edinburgh does the type better than almost anywhere.
A whole house, not a wing
The best of them occupy a single townhouse, perhaps eight rooms over four storeys, with a drawing room instead of a lobby and a staircase that creaks in a satisfying way. You are given a key to the front door and treated, more or less, as a temporary resident of one of the finest streets in Europe. It is the city equivalent of being lent a friend's flat, if your friend had impeccable taste.
Walkable by design
The genius of an Edinburgh bolthole is location. From the right doorstep you can be in the Botanics, up Calton Hill, or deep in a Stockbridge bookshop within twenty minutes on foot. The team at Condé Nast Traveler's hotel coverage make the same argument about great city hotels everywhere: the building matters, but the streets around it matter just as much, and Edinburgh's streets are hard to beat.
Coming back at dusk
The finest moment of a city stay is the return. You climb the hill as the gas-lamp light comes on, push open a heavy door into a warm hallway, and the noise of the city falls away behind you. A good bolthole makes the whole city feel like the grounds of your house for a few days. That is worth more than any minibar.
