The Balmoral

The North British Railway opened this hotel above its own station in 1902, and set the clock to suit the business: the tower over Waverley has run three minutes fast ever since, so that passengers catch their trains. It is put right once a year, on Hogmanay, when the city wants its midnight exact. William Hamilton Beattie built it of sandstone at the east end of Princes Street, all turrets and domed corners, with the Saltire on a pole above the clock and a gilt RF on the front for Rocco Forte, who has owned it since 1997. Inside, some rooms look into a central courtyard and others out at the city, many with a gas fire, and the ones to book have Castle View in the name.

Recommended for a first visit to Edinburgh, above all by train, since the station is next door. The Royal Mile is five minutes across the valley on foot, and the Castle a quarter of an hour up the Mound. Families are better provided for than the frontage suggests, with suites that sleep two adults and two children, interconnecting ones for more, and babysitting on request. Downstairs the spa has a 15-metre pool, indoors, which in Edinburgh is where a pool belongs. Dinner is Number One, where the Orkney scallops are dived for by hand, or Brasserie Prince, and afterwards SCOTCH, the whisky bar. Room 552 is now the J.K. Rowling Suite: on 11 January 2007 she finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in it, and said so in writing on a marble bust of Hermes, which the hotel has since put in a glass case, the one piece of graffiti in the building it means to keep.