Another Edinburgh luxury hotel review- with an accessory twist
Kimpton Charlotte Square hotel, a fun travel game and thoughts on Substack #94
Welcome to the new subcribers who came here after seeing my name in Emma’s Postcards from Wherever. And thank you Emma for including me in your list of people you follow to spot new addresses.
Keeping an eye on the market, finding hotels, spotting what’s different about them and would suit my taste for independent and unique small boutique hotels, is what I do here. Every week of so, I list 5 “extra finds”, other hotels that I haven’t stayed at yet but have caught my eye. Other weeks, like this week, I may write a review of a recent stay.
My special skill is researching and curating. Throw me the challenge of finding a great place in a specific location and I can’t help but go right into a rabbit hole of my own database, map and other resources to give you some ideas.
When I moved my 7 years old newsletter here more than two years ago, I was kind of the only Substack focusing on hotels. The main travel one was Yolo’s journal, which has now moved out of the platform. Now, you can have Emma’s Substack combining photos and writing about slow travel,
who is an expert on in-depth itineraries especially in Italy or who combines travel with art and design and great insights on Istanbul.It’s great to see many more joining the ranks and it makes me reflect on what I’ll do here in the future. More to come on this soon.
Substack is a very interesting ecosystem. It started as a platform for writers to make money from their creations, then tried to evolve into a social network and now is a plethora of writing, thinking, inspiration and fun. For me, it’s like my own personalised magazine, a collection of all the topics I’m interested in.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out. I know it’s also becoming quite popular in France so my French readers could find it valuable too. Here the one newsletter to subscribe to is
‘s. It’s just a masterpiece of intelligence, reflection and knowledge, supposedly focusing on technology but it always makes me reflect on more philosophical topics.And Substack can also throw some interesting discoveries such as this a very fun game that unlocks all sorts of dreams. The goal is simple. Can you do a round-the-world trip starting and ending in London (I think you can choose your departure, mine defaulted to London) for less than £1,000? And if you fancy booking one of the flights you see in real life, you can do that too. Very clever from Skyscanner and thanks to the Travel Tech Essentialist for sharing it first.
Give it a go and let me know what were your stops and how much money you managed to have left!
Hotel review - Kimpton Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
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For two business events in the past year, I stayed at Kimpton Charlotte Square in Edinburgh.
It's actually a hotel that is quite large, in the sense that there are many rooms, but it has a really nice boutique hotel feel with warm and stylish decoration that perfectly matches the ambiance of Edinburgh. And it has a pool!
I actually think it’s better value than the ultra boutique luxury hotel that is 100 Princes Street, which I reviewed here previously.
So here are my thoughts.
Kimpton Charlotte Square is very well located in the center of Edinburgh
Overlooking one of Edinburgh’s prettiest private garden squares, Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel consists of seven interconnected Georgian townhouses but you wouldn’t feel that it’s that big.
You can easily walk to the castle in about 25 minutes and explore the city center of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a charming and fabulous city, and I must say that during the Christmas season, it was dressed up with beautiful lights in the bars, pubs, and restaurants, creating a very cozy and pleasant atmosphere
Stylish rooms with good services
The hotel has 199 rooms! Yet it never felt that busy even with all our delegation there. The rooms are stylishly designed and have good space and amenities.
I'm not sure what category I had, but I was on the fifth floor and when I got out of the elevator, there was a beautiful view of the castle!
Make sure to inquire about the room location: during my first stay, my room didn't have a nice view at all. It overlooked a small inner courtyard with some machinery. On my second stay I was on the 4th floor overlooking the side street and it was a good room. Somme colleagues complained of noise on other sides. As always I think the best way to avoid noise and try to get a good view is to ask for a room on an elevated floor.
The room was spacious, with wooden floors, carpets, a comfortable bed, and many decorative elements to add a homely touch. It had practical features like well-placed lights, a coffee and tea tray to make your own, and an iron board and iron in the wardrobe. You could also call if you had forgotten to pack many things and they would bring it to you.
Full marks for an innovative service: an accessory shop!
A new detail that I had never seen in a hotel before was the possibility to borrow accessories for the evening. So, this is for you, ladies. You can look at the catalog which they curated in partnership with Anthropology to browse a selection of belts, statement jewellry or bags for your evening out.
Then you just go to the front desk and they hand it to you FOR FREE! You are borrowing it for the evening. I chose a silver clutch to complement my outfit and be fully in our silver anniversary theme.
This was really super convenient!
Food choices at the Kimpton Charlotte Square
The hotel itself has several spaces for dining and relaxation: a restaurant, a lounge-bar-breakfast area which was very cozy and warm, with soft or velvet-textured armchairs and colors like dark green, ochre, orange, red, and brown, which perfectly matched the autumn season.
As for the food, I couldn't tell you, besides breakfast how good it is, since we had a specially catered meal for the event, for around 100 people. It was curry for lunch which was fine. Breakfast was plentiful and in a nice room with lots of options.
And of course, ideally if you are in Edinburgh is to go out and sample the city!
And there is a spa!
I didn’t realize the first time I stayed there but there is actually a spa with a pool too! I checked it out and it was really of a good size with a sauna. Nothing fancy but it was very warm and a good way to relax after a visit in the cold streets of Edinburgh in the winter season.
The service was very good, very professional, very kind, and very welcoming.
All in all, a really good base in Edinburgh.
Thank you so much for the mention — very much appreciated! I love reading your newsletters and stash away all your helpful tips, tricks and recommendations
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