Our Favourite UK Hotels

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 4:38 am

This article was sent in by Chris Laskett of New Orleans.

We’re just back from a visit to the UK, our third in the last few years and I thought that I’d mention a few of the great uk hotels that we stayed in during our latest trip. There is so much to see and do in the wonderful cities of the British Isles, each of them offers history and tradition going back thousands of years. Add in the other advantage that they converse in a language not unlike our own and that a museum or art gallery can be visited in case of inclement weather and we have the recipe for a truly awesome holiday. We’re certain that you’d enjoy visiting the UK, but would always advise US citizens to check with the U.S. Department of State Advice to Travelers website whilst planning international travel.

Edinburgh, Scotland

You can be assured of a friendly welcome in the wonderful city of Edinburgh. This compact city is situated on the East Coast of Scotland and consists of the Old Town including the Royal Mile and the New Town, with the two halves separated by the line of Princes Street. The University of Edinburgh dates back to 1582 and its colleges, museums and galleries are distributed around the city. There are a number of exhibits open to the general public, check their web site for opening times.

During the Summer Edinburgh welcomes thousands of tourists attending its festivals. The Edinburgh International Festival runs for four weeks and showcases music, dance, theatre and opera. Running beside it is the famous “Fringe”, which typically offers over 25,000 performances in over 250 different venues all over the city. With that many widely varying shows from which to choose (with a very high percentage of world premieres) including theatre, comedy, ballet, shows for the children and many musical concerts there is something for everybody. There is in addition, the Literary Festival, the Blues & Jazz Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival that run throughout the summer here.

Since we only had two days in the city we were determined to be a trifle extravagant and stay in one of the most famous hotels in Scotland, The Edinburgh Scotsman Hotel. This wonderful old hotel can be found plumb in the middle of many of the city’s finest attractions and places including Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood House, The Royal Mile and the National Gallery of Scotland are all within easy walking distance. As previously mentioned the decision had been made to spoil ourselves by staying at this world famous hotel and everything that we had hoped for came true.

Birmingham, England

One of the main highlights of our latest visit to the UK was a planned visit to the Crufts Dog Show which is held in the NEC Arena in Birmingham, the UK’s second city. Spread over 4 days, it’s the world’s leading dog show. Last Year 143,000 visitors witnessed competition between over 25,000 dogs from 26 countries in the show rings. Another great attraction at the show is the Discover Dogs section where examples from 190 different breeds of dog are present with their owners, giving visitors an opportunity to question the owners and find the breed that will make the perfect pet for them. Since we were only going to Crufts, rather than exploring the city of Birmingham we took the decision to book a hotel close to the NEC exhibition centre. On this occasion we were not expecting one of the world’s top hotels, more a place to get a good night’s sleep after a hard day walking around that vast complex admiring dogs of all shapes and sizes. We booked into the Crowne Plaza NEC which is situated inside the grounds of the National Exhibition Centre. The hotel was exactly what you’d expect, clean, bright and completely impersonal. There was nothing to complain about and we’d happily use it again when visiting concerts or exhibitions at the NEC.

London, England

London was our final port of call on the latest trip. If you’ve never seen London you honestly do need to comprehend the sheer size of the city. It has grown and grown outwards over the years and it’s essential that you make up your mind precisely what you want to visit during your trip else you’ll be spending all of your time traveling on buses and the London underground and let me tell you, that’s not something to look forward to. Our agenda for this final few days of our trip was to get in some retail therapy i.e. shopping. To that end we resolved to stay in the Knightsbridge area with its huge numbers of chic, world famous stores such as Harrods. We booked into the Knightsbridge Sheraton Park Tower in ultra-stylish Knightsbridge. The Sheraton Park Tower is one of the capital’s most famous hotels, known for its “One-O-One” restaurant, London’s best fish restaurant. The hotel offers tremendous views over the London skyline with many rooms overlooking Hyde Park In addition to the host of exciting shops, you will find many of the city’s best museums and landmarks within a short distance of the hotel.

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