Edinburgh
Hotel Stopovers

Why Stay Over in Edinburgh

The pleasure of a Belmond Royal Scotsman journey is easily doubled by a night in Edinburgh at either end of it — and if you are travelling any distance to reach the train, a night before departure is less a luxury than good sense.

Every Royal Scotsman itinerary departs from and returns to Edinburgh Waverley, and check-in for the train takes place at The Balmoral, the hotel that stands directly above the station at the east end of Princes Street. Guests are asked to be there at least forty minutes before departure, at which point your host and crew take charge of you and your luggage and walk you down to the platform.

That arrangement makes the choice of hotel unusually easy. Staying where you check in removes the one genuinely stressful part of the day: there is no taxi to order, no luggage to wrestle across a concourse, and no margin to misjudge. It also means that if your train into Edinburgh is delayed the evening before, you have a night in hand rather than a problem.

Arriving a day early is worth it on its own terms, too. Edinburgh is a city that rewards an unhurried afternoon, and the walk from the hotel door to the Royal Mile, the Scottish National Gallery or Princes Street Gardens is measured in minutes rather than miles.

The Balmoral, Edinburgh

Many Edinburgh hotels can claim the city's landmarks on their doorstep. Few can claim that their doorstep is a landmark. The Balmoral's clock tower has stood over the east end of Princes Street since the hotel opened on 15 October 1902 as the North British Station Hotel, built by the North British Railway for passengers arriving at Waverley below. It has been part of Sir Rocco Forte's collection since 1997, and it holds a Five-Star rating from Forbes Travel Guide.

The clock itself is the piece of Edinburgh trivia every visitor is told, and it happens to be true: it is deliberately set three minutes fast, so that nobody hurrying down to Waverley misses a train. The one night of the year it is corrected is Hogmanay, when the city needs it to be right.

Inside there are 167 rooms and 20 suites, arranged over a building that is grander in scale than most city hotels of its class. Rooms look either south over the Old Town and the castle or north over the New Town, and the castle-facing rooms are the ones to ask for. Suites are named rather than numbered in the usual way; the best known is room 552, now the J.K. Rowling Suite, where the author finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on 11 January 2007 and signed a marble bust of Hermes to say so. It is still in the room.

Dining

Number One is the hotel's flagship dining room, and one of the most decorated restaurants in the city: four AA Rosettes, a place in the Michelin Guide and a listing in La Liste's global top 1,000. It held a Michelin star from 2003, under executive chef Jeff Bland, until the 2022 guide. John Munro was promoted from senior sous chef to head chef in July 2026, working under executive chef Paul Hart, and cooks a modern Scottish menu built on seasonal and foraged produce — he also keeps the restaurant's beehives. Number One serves dinner only and is not open every night, so book when you book the hotel.

Brasserie Prince is the all-day alternative, opened in June 2018 with Alain Roux of The Waterside Inn and pairing French brasserie cooking with Scottish produce. It is the easier and more sociable of the two rooms, and the better choice for the night before an early start.

Palm Court serves what is probably Edinburgh's best-known afternoon tea, under a glass dome and a Venetian chandelier, with a classical harpist playing. SCOTCH, the hotel's whisky bar, keeps more than 500 bottles and a whisky ambassador to steer you through them — a sensible first stop if you are about to spend a week being offered malts on the train.

The Balmoral Spa

The spa is unusually large for a European city hotel: an indoor pool, a Finnish sauna, a Turkish steam room, five treatment rooms and a Technogym-equipped gym. If you have flown in from a long way off, an hour there before dinner is the fastest way to arrive properly.

The Balmoral at a Glance

Booking Your Stopover

We book Balmoral stays alongside Royal Scotsman journeys as a matter of course, and it is worth letting us handle both together. Rooms are quoted for your specific dates rather than from a rate card, and we can flag the things that are easy to miss: which rooms face the castle, whether Number One is serving on the night you arrive, and how the timing works against your inbound flight or train.

Two dates are worth planning around. During the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe in August, and over Hogmanay at the turn of the year, the city fills and rates rise sharply — book those as far ahead as you can. The same applies to the nights either side of a Royal Scotsman departure in high summer.

If you would rather stay somewhere else in the city, we can arrange that too. Tell us what you have in mind and we will put options in front of you.

Making the Most of a Spare Day

Edinburgh Castle is the obvious call and deserves the visit, though it is busiest in the middle of the day; go at opening or in the last couple of hours. The Royal Mile runs downhill from it to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and the closes and wynds off either side are the more interesting part of the walk.

The Scottish National Gallery sits at the foot of the Mound, five minutes from the hotel and free to enter. For a view, Calton Hill is a gentler climb than Arthur's Seat and gives you the whole city, the Firth of Forth and, on a clear day, the hills of Fife. And if the weather is doing what Edinburgh weather often does, the National Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street will absorb an entire afternoon.

Frequently Asked Questions