Edinburgh
The New Town's grandest interiors were built as showrooms, not bars — this one only became a bar by accident of geography.
What's now the Café Royal opened in 1861 as a showroom for gas fittings and sanitary ware, and turned into a hotel bar only two years later. The oval island counter and the Doulton tile portraits of Victorian inventors came later still, added in the 1890s. Edinburgh's New Town is full of buildings that started out as something else entirely — this is one of the more interesting ones to actually sit inside.
Logged in Edinburgh
Where to stay in Edinburgh
Stays shown via Stay22 — booking through the map supports the log.
Part of
The Best Places to Ring In the New Year
Eight places in the order midnight reaches them — 108 strikes of a temple bell in Kyoto, twelve grapes in Madrid, a river of torches in Edinburgh, and the ball in Times Square.
Halloween, Locally Observed
Eleven cities where the end of October is a real local custom rather than an imported one — a fire festival on Calton Hill, a cemetery vigil that runs all night, and ossuaries in Naples, Palermo and Paris you can walk through any week of the year.