Gleneagles has spent 100 years as Perthshire's home of golf and gundogs - and now it has a sassy little sister, right on St Andrew Square in the well-heeled grid of Edinburgh's Georgian New Town. Located in the old Bank of Scotland building, the Gleneagles Townhouse is announced discreetly by a tiny plaque on the stone wall outside, but step inside and you'll enter a vibrant world of giant palms, Murano chandeliers, jewelled velvets and hummingbird-bedecked walls. The past is everywhere, too: cocktails in the grand old Telling Room, a spa built into the strong rooms once used for storing gold and silver, and a roof terrace guarded by magnificent Georgian statuary.
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The Spence is the glorious all-day restaurant, housed where the bank once did its business, and pink-tinted granite columns soar to a stained-glass dome. Stone cameos of a dozen famous Scots (Adam Smith and Walter Scott among them) gaze down on a central bar modelled after the old teller's counter, and there are velvet sofas and plenty of cushions in vibrant plums, peaches and peacock blues. Right at the top of the building, the Lamplighters rooftop bar is the place to survey the spires and the Firth of Forth, with a dram in hand, of course.
All 33 bedrooms are individually designed, with wooden floors, antique rugs, painted-panel walls and King-size beds dressed in sumptuous fabrics. They range in size from the cosy Nook Rooms in the eaves (small) up through House and Town categories (slightly larger) to the Master Bedrooms, the largest of which look over St Andrew Square and come with a free-standing bath to soak in. They're also pin-drop quiet, despite the city beyond the glass. Some rooms even take dogs (labrador-sized and under), should yours object to being left behind.
In the basement, the state-of-the-art wellness suite packs in a cryotherapy chamber, infrared sauna and a full timetable of barre, breathwork and spin classes, for when you're not pounding the seven hills of the city. Step outside and the cobbled climb to the Royal Mile, the castle and the warren of Edinburgh's Old Town begins just across the gardens, with Princes Street unrolling on the way. Shop in the New Town for tweed and designer find; come in August and the Fringe takes over every close and wynd; and if golf is calling, the original Gleneagles is just an hour north in Perthshire.
Indulging in a spa treatment inside the former vaults. There's an infrared sauna, a cryotherapy chamber and treatments from Dr Barbara Sturm behind the original steel doors.
Time your stay for the last Sunday of the month and indulge in the infamous brunch - and the dessert room, a doughnut station, chocolate fountain and pick-and-mix sweeties, all at once.
The rooms are snug, even in the hight categories, and the attic Nook Rooms have slanted ceilings and next to no view for a not-so-snug price.
The undisputed Home of Golf and Scotland's oldest university, all within a cobbled square mile.
