Hotel du Vin Edinburgh

Rooms

First things first. The Hotel du Vin’s 47 rooms and suites have fantastic beds. With their queen-sized Vi-spring mattresses and Egyptian cotton bedlinen, if you don’t get a good night’s sleep here, you probably won’t get one anywhere. All come with toiletries from Arran Aromatics, plasma TVs and DVD players; there’s a library in reception as well as a supply of board games in case the dreich Scottish weather does its worst while you’re there. Imaginatively stocked minibars include complimentary Taylors of Harrogate teas, freshly ground coffee and posh hot chocolate.

We stayed in a superior double, in the attic of the older part of the building, which meant added character thanks to beams and a sloping ceiling. Like the other rooms in this category, the bathroom also had a huge, Aston Matthews, free-standing bath as well as a walk-in monsoon shower (the standard doubles have a shower over the bath or, in some cases, just a shower). Some of the standard doubles in the new-build section are rather small, designed for guests travelling alone, but those hadn’t been finished when we checked in so we weren’t able to get proper measurements.

If you do need more space, there are three categories of larger rooms to choose from. Studios come with a seating area that can double up as a triple room thanks to a pull-out bed, while Suites do the same but, as the name suggests, are substantially bigger. The top-of-the-range Luxury Suite also has its own (small) private terrace with a view of Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano in the city centre. Other rooms have no real views to speak of but, if you want to get your bearings, sneak out to the rooftop terrace of the National Museum of Scotland, across the road, and that’s easily fixed.

We weren’t completely sold on the rooms’ bold mustard, navy, teal and plum colour schemes, but other guests have commented positively - and, to give the hotel’s designers their due, these are mainly traditional Edinburgh colours which, in winter months, add definite warmth. It's also worth bearing in mind that rooms overlooking the inner courtyard may get noise from smokers in the cigar bothy until 11 or 11.30pm.