Rocco Forte

The clock on The Balmoral runs three minutes fast, on purpose. It was set that way when the hotel opened in 1902 as the North British Station Hotel, so that guests wouldn’t miss their trains at the station next door. There were bagpipers at the door when we arrived, and the doormen wear a tartan designed for the hotel. J.K. Rowling wrote the last chapters of Harry Potter upstairs, in room 552.

Number One, the restaurant that held the Michelin star when we stayed, was closed while we were there. Hadrian’s Brasserie covered for it — the beet salad especially — and we spent the evenings in Scotch, the whisky bar, working through some of its 500-plus malts, blends and vintages. I’d been put off scotch for years, and the bartenders found me several I liked. Then we walked into the spa and recognized the director, Christelle, the same one we’d worked with at a spa in the Maldives years earlier. Ask for a castle view. Ours looked one way up to the castle and the Royal Mile, and the other across Princes Street to the New Town.