A few stolen hours in Edinburgh make travel chaos worth while

Any frequent business traveller will tell you that the hassle far outstrips the occasional perk of a nice expense account dinner or a drive by foreign hot spots. But if you don’t get to travel much in your job, then the rare work-related jaunt can be a thing of immense excitement. 

Perhaps even enough to overshadow all the meetings, the train strike that forced me to drive to the airport, the 6.5 hour delay on the outbound flight, the inconveniently scheduled return at 7:15 on a Friday night, the 45-minute delay on that departure, and the M3 shutdown that meant my 40-minute drive home took 90. 

But in exchange I got Edinburgh. 

We smashed all of our business objectives and I, thanks to the inconveniently-scheduled homeward flight, was able to grab 4.5 hours for myself to ramble around one of the world’s greatest Georgian cities beneath clement skies that made everything look postcard-perfect. 

(And lest you think I was skiving, I made up almost every minute of the time working in the airport and on the flight home. No rest for the wicked.)

There are, of course, plenty of things to do in this ancient city that aren’t Georgian. A first time-tourist would probably stroll up the hugely picturesque Royal Mile to visit the castle. I’ve done that enough times to know it’s one of those castles that’s actually a lot more dramatic inside than out. I seriously considered Holyrood, the Queen’s official palace in Scotland. There’s both history and more bang for your art and interiors buck there, and I haven’t been inside for at least 20 years. I decided I wanted to do something entirely new to me, however, so headed for The Georgian House on Charlotte Square. 

The walk through Edinburgh’s New Town to get there was as good as the attraction. 

By the middle of the 18th century the city, then confined to the medieval footprint stretching from the castle to Holyrood, was bursting at its dank, dangerous seams. Meanwhile, Scots were playing an ever-increasing role in the politics and culture of the still newly-United Kingdom. They wanted a capital that matched their contribution in the Age of Enlightenment. They also wanted to affirm their loyalty to the king in London after the Scottish-based rebellion in 1745. The result was a massive, gracious, purpose-built urban expansion running on a parallel hill to the Old Town. The architectural style matched what was going on in London, Bath and Dublin, while all the street names broadcast allegiance to the throne. 

George Street runs along the crest of the New Town’s hill, with views of the Old Town and the castle to the south and down to the Firth of Forth to the north. On a sunny day, with the whole scene framed by blue skies, blue waters and green hills, it’s one of the best settings for an urban walk in Europe. The buildings along this double-width avenue are almost entirely neo-classical; some have the restrained dignity of Tuscan villas, others the Baroque embellishment of palaces. Edinburgh may be known as the Athens of the North, but George Street sweeps you away to Italy. Anglo-Saxon restraint keeps things from getting out of control, however. 

There’s an amusing “compare and contrast” to be had if you wander into the church of St. Andrew’s and St. George’s and picture it beside San’Andrea al Quirinale in Rome. The churches share an unusual oval footprint, they both look back to Greek and Roman design, and the Roman St. Andrew’s is home to Scotttish Catholics in that city, but there all similarities stop. While the Roman church is a breath-stealing, gold encrusted exercise is excess, the Scottish church is restrained, elegant and mostly white, its only exuberance being colourful Robert Adam-style plasterwork on its ceiling. 

As the most famous architect of the age and a Scot by birth, it’s no surprise that Adam’s influence is felt here though his actual contribution is limited. What he did, however, it arguably the most beautiful bit of the whole New Town. Adam designed Charlotte Square along the same lines as Paris’ Place des Vosges, with individual residences blending into what appears to be a single, unified palace. The north and south sides have grand central pediments, while the west is centred on a domed church, now the Scottish National Records Office. (It’s not by Adam, but fits seamlessly into the scheme.) The park in the middle is a private one for residents only, but is mostly just green lawn, making the building facades look even better.

The Georgian House is at No. 7, originally purchased and furnished by the chief of Clan Lamont and now in the hands of the National Trust for Scotland. (National Trust for England and Wales cards are honoured here.) Like the castle, the exterior is a bit more impressive than the interior, but if you’re a fan of the Georgians and Robert Adam it’s a fascinating comparison to his English work. While the classic lines, familiar motifs, sash windows and grand stairs are here, everything is smaller and simpler. The staircase with its oval skylight at the top is the only one in the house; no separate servants’ option here. There are no flamboyant Adam plaster ceilings. Each floor has just two main rooms. 

In stark contrast to the usual Georgian townhouse plan, houses here followed a Scottish tradition of keeping a combined audience and bedchamber on the ground floor next to the dining room. Above, a drawing room stretches the width of the house at the front while a library sits behind it. Bedrooms would have been on upper floors. These aren’t restored to Georgian times but used as galleries for temporary exhibitions and as a cinema room where you can watch an excellent film about life in the house in Lord Lamont’s time. It would have been the height of luxury in turn of the 19th-century Edinburgh, but would have come across as a distinct step down from townhouses in London or Bath. (No. 1 Royal Crescent in Bath, also restored and open as a museum, is probably the Georgian House’s most direct tourism contemporary in England.) I wonder if Nicola Sturgeon, whose official residence is in Bute House next door, notices and adds the inferiority to her list of grievances against the English?

At the other end of George Street there’s another square, St. Andrew’s, and No. 39 there can keep up with anything in London. Although that may be due to its origin 80 years later as a bank headquarters rather than as a private home. Now it’s the sumptuous Gleneagles Townhouse, urban outpost of the famous golfing resort. This isn’t the kind of place one gets put up in on business trips … the website doesn’t even list prices for its exquisitely appointed rooms … but you can make reservations to dine here or even, as we did, get lucky and slip in for a table in the bar for drinks. Both restaurant and bar are in what was the main hall of the bank, with towering marble columns, grand fireplaces and a coved ceiling offering heroes of Scotland in high relief amongst decorative swirls. 

My lodgings were in the far more sensible Apex Hotel at Waterloo place, which had none of Gleneagles’ opulence but everything you really care about when travelling on business: quiet rooms with effective, individually-controlled heating and air conditioning, a great bed, an indoor pool and gym with long hours so you have some chance of squeezing some exercise into your day, and a quiet restaurant with a broad, practical menu that allows you to get something to eat on your own without a big fuss at the end of the day. It’s also exceptionally well located, just a few minutes’ stroll from both the train station and the terminus of the tram line in from the airport. (At £9 for an open-ended return on a gleaming, air-conditioned tram that glides you from point-to-point with hardly a bump, this has to be one of the best deals in public transport in the UK.)

A few other points to note from my visit:

St. James Quarter is a glistening new, galleria-inspired shopping centre just north of the main train station. In my youth, this was a downmarket area where you could find B&Bs for £6 a night where you fed 20 pence coins into the radiator for some feeble warmth to keep the ancient cold at bay. That’s all been swept away for upscale brands and dining variety. I might be distressed at losing all that historic architecture if they hadn’t done the new stuff so well, and if it wasn’t completely surrounded by historic neighbourhoods in great shape. 

The Everyman Cinema within the mall is purpose built, a divergence from the chain’s usual approach of re-working  historic buildings. They’ve retained the sofa seating, however, and doubled down on the whole nightclub cum cinema vibe. There are two floors of dining and drinking area here to augment the screening rooms. Which made it a fabulous venue for a corporate event, with presentations in the cinema and drinks afterwards in the upper lounge, set aside for private use.

The Scottish National Gallery, like all of the UK’s national museums, is free to enter. It’s also tiny. Which makes it a fabulous stop if you’re walking on nearby Princes Street. Head to the back building for the core of the collection, displayed in six galleries that circle one floor of what appears to be a Greek temple. The collection may be small but the masterpiece percentage is high, with works from Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner and more. There’s even an exquisite little DaVinci, the Madonna of the Yarnwinder. But for me, the star sight is Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen, which has always seemed to me to be the essence of Scotland on canvas.

The Eastern European pop giving atmosphere to Miros Cantina Mexicana, didn’t undermine the experience in this delightful little find on Rose Street, a lane of eclectic restaurants between the better-known Princes and George Streets. Despite the vast diversity of people and cuisines in the UK, Mexican is  rarely done well here. I’d have been ecstatic to find this near me. Instead, succulent carnitas tacos and cold beer added to the perfection, if not the Georgian theme, of my Edinburgh afternoon of escape.

Did you know that the Walter Scott Memorial, ground zero for sightseeing in Edinburgh, is the largest monument in the world dedicated to a writer? And they commemorated the man for eternity with one of his favourite dogs by his side. Makes me want to dust off my copy of Waverley and tuck in once more.

Spencer House: One of London's most remarkable, hidden jewels

Winter weekends are custom-made for city breaks and indoor sightseeing. London's museums know this well, with November through February being a favourite time for blockbuster exhibitions. A day wandering the V&A or the British Museum will always banish the gloom that short, dark days wrap around me. It's worth remembering, however, that London has many gems beyond the usual blockbusters, and January and February are ideal times to explore. With tourists at their seasonal low, you might even find that you have a treasure almost to yourself.

Such was the case recently at Spencer House, arguably one of the greatest Georgian interiors in the country yet little known beyond serious fans of the age. Its location couldn't be more central ... overlooking Green Park, almost within shouting distance of Buckingham Palace ... but most Londoners have probably never heard of it, and would be challenged to direct you to its backstreet entrance.

This is the only aristocratic townhouse in London that appears as it would have in the 18th century. Once, every noble family maintained these urban palaces, from which they ran business, controlled the social scene and pulled political strings. By the 20th century, however, the world had changed and cash-strapped old families were re-trenching to their country estates to try to survive. Many properties met the wrecker's ball, with whole rooms often being sold to museums or rich business magnates in the States. Though many of the buildings remain, most of them have now been converted to private clubs, offices or embassies. Spencer House is unique.

It wasn't always this way. Like so many others, it had been used as offices from World War II until the mid-'80s. Enter the hero of our story: Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild. Businessman, philanthropist, passionate about art and history. (I dined with him at a business event in the '00s and had to fight to avoid fan-girl swooning.) Rothschild procured a 96-year lease from the Spencer family, who still own the place, and set to work. The walls and ceilings had been covered by modern plasterboard and were mostly intact. The restoration team cleaned, refurbished, re-gilt ... then set to work buying period furnishings to bring the place to life. So though the original residents John and Georgiana Spencer wouldn't claim any of the furnishings as their own, they certainly would have found them familiar.

A guided tour, only possible on Sundays, will take you through 11 rooms now glowing with 18th-century authenticity. You'll find all of the beautiful details you expect from any Georgian stately home: portraits and Old Master paintings, furniture in the style of Chippendale and Robert Adam, piles of worthy books, busts of great men, sumptuous draperies. What's different about Spencer House? First, because Rothschild selected all the furnishings and still uses the place for work, socialising and special events during the week, it has a "lived in" feel about it despite its Georgian credentials. Second, it has two rooms that are beguilingly gorgeous, and unique in British architecture.

The first is the Palm Room, one of the few interiors in Britain where neo-classical Palladianism approaches the giddy heights of Rococo. Its bones are pure Georgian: Lofty rectangle, classical frieze, column-framed fireplace, alcove on one end through a screen of columns. The flight of fancy comes with the columns themselves, which have been transformed into palm trees by riots of gold-gilt plaster. You get the idea that the plasterers had never actually seen a palm tree, but their loose interpretation only adds to the charm. At the centre of the alcove stands a copy of a famous Roman statue of Venus, beneath a dome and framed by three alcove-topping half domes all coffered with more gold gilt. One wonders if a young Prince George, someday to become the Prince Regent and then the 4th king of his name, found inspiration here that led to his madcap house at Brighton.

The other masterpiece is immediately above. While the Palm Room was intended as an after-dinner lounge for the gentlemen, couples came back together in the Painted Room. Designer James "Athenian" Stuart made the decorative scheme a celebration of marriage in honour of the owners' famously happy one. Several legendary marriages are depicted and deities of love dance across painted walls that would look at home in Pompeii or Herculaneum. Light floods in from the windows in the semi-circular apse, making the gilt details and dazzling white columns shine. How magical it would be to grab a book, stretch out on the green silk sofa between the mastiff-sized golden griffins that form the arms, and spend the afternoon here. But unless your name is Rothschild, that's unlikely.

If you are a female visitor, don't miss the chance to visit the ladies' loo before you leave. You'll find a fantastic collection of 18th century satirical cartoons and a 1/12 scale model of the house above that gives you another perspective on the decorative detail. The model by husband and wife team Kevin Mulvany and Susan Rogers took two years to make and is correct in every detail, from its hand-woven rugs to the furniture and paintings. It's as fascinating as any of the interiors upstairs.

Spencer House is open every Sunday from 10 am to 4:30 pm. You must go through with a guide, but that's a real treat. Unlike the well-meaning but often ill-informed volunteers who add little to a National Trust house, these are professionals hired by the Rothschilds to bring the house to life. They'll cover the history, the art, the architecture, the romantic story of John and Georgiana Spencer (ancestors of both Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and Princess Diana) and how the decorative schemes throughout the house celebrate their relationship. It's a bargain at £15, and you get a discount if you're a member of the Tate, V&A, Royal Academy or the Art Fund. If you want a free sample, Spencer House is open to all during London Open House weekend ... usually in mid-September ... but the queues are prodigious and the tours are much shorter.

Give yourself a winter treat and pay for the full experience. You won't regret it.

Greenwich's Painted Hall tour is a unique adventure

Lovers of the English language bristle at casual abuse of the word “unique”. An adjective that should be used to describe the exceptionally rare and precious now seems to find its way into marketing copy for everything from laundry detergent to your corner restaurant. “Once in a lifetime” follows not that far behind in casual misuse.

Right now, and for just a few weeks longer, you can have an experience in Greenwich that … quite literally … gives you full rights to use that language. All you need to do is lay out £10, don a high visibility vest and follow your guide up four flights of scaffolding to get within inches of one of England’s greatest works of art.

The painted hall within the Old Royal Naval College is a kind of Georgian Sistine Chapel. Like its Italian cousin, this is one monumental room, painted wall and ceiling by the same artist for demanding patrons with very particular political messages in mind. Michelangelo’s mission was to glorify god. James Thornhill’s to glorify the Hanoverian dynasty, and the Glorious Revolution that preceded them to keep the throne Protestant. With his swirling clouds, cavorting deities, architectural elements and haughty aristocrats, Thornhill is as grandly bombastic as any Italian. In fact, in an era where it was still common to import Italians to paint palatial decorative schemes (witness Antonio Verrio’s Heaven and Hell rooms at Burghley House), Thornhill proved the English could do it for themselves.

The painted hall has always been a major tourist attraction, of course, but you’ve never been able to get this close. (Even if you've never been there, there's a good chance you've seen it on screen as this is a favourite filming location for historical drama.)

Roughly once every 100 to 125 years, the ceiling needs to be cleaned. Now, for only the third time in its history, scaffolding fills the hall so restorers can get at the paintings. And, much like the Sistine Chapel renovation that finished in 1999, Thornhill’s modern restorers are stripping off layers of varnish applied in well-meaning, but ultimately damaging, earlier efforts to reveal the luminous glory of the original colours.

Tours allow you to see the restorers at work and are escorted by a guide who explains both the process of cleaning and what’s going on in the vast series of paintings. One of the most moving sights of the visit is a jar full of discarded, oversized cotton buds that have been used to gently swab the ceiling. They've picked up so much dirt, they look like pieces of charcoal. It's also interesting to see how little fine detail is filled in on the figures. When you're standing far below, the almost-impressionistic flow of colours melds into realistic detail. This close, it's important to have the guide with you to explain what's going on. There's William and Mary, ascending to heaven in a blaze of glory. Above them, Apollo in his sun chariot leads the way. Gods and legends populate the clouds around them. They might have saved Great Britain for the Protestant faith but, ironically, it's a pagan pantheon that sweeps them to heaven.

Prows of massive ships occupy either end of the ceiling, showing off Britain's naval might. The men dining in the hall below, after all, would have been retired Royal Navy seamen. There's even a sprinkling of significant historic figures, and one Naval pensioner painted in to give his colleagues below a sense that everyone was included in this triumph. 

Beyond the Painted Hall, a stroll around Greenwich is always a delight. Just across the grand courtyard from the Hall is the Seamen's Chapel, a miracle of tromp l'oeil painting with a blue-and-white Wedgwood-inspired ceiling. It's one of James "Athenian" Stuart's masterpieces. 

The two magnificent ranges of Georgian architecture that these rooms sit in, facing each other through grand, columned arcades, are arms leading up to the Queen's House. Actually about a century older, this small palace was one of the first Palladian buildings in England. Though started for Anne of Denmark, it's most associated with Queen Henrietta Maria, a woman whose artistic taste was almost as good as her political instincts were bad. (She certainly contributed to the mess that led her husband, Charles I, to execution.) There's little of the original furnishing or decoration inside; the architecture itself, an exquisite circular staircase with sinuous wrought iron foliage and one exuberant Renaissance-style painted ceiling are all Henrietta Maria would recognise.

It's still worth a wander through, however, because the National Maritime Museum has moved some of its best paintings here, and other national collections have lent nautical masterpieces. The freshly-restored Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I is probably the grandest example. The main hall, which long ago lost its original decoration, has been given over to a modern art installation by Richard Wright. Now thousands of 23-carat gold leaf moths flutter over the ceiling and upper walls. It's a bit jarring against the Palladian architecture, but it is beautiful.

Best of all, the Queen's House is now free. Before the renovation, it was under English Heritage's management and had an admission fee. Now it's simply an extension of the excellent, admission-free museum next door.

This is all just the tip of the tourism iceberg in Greenwich. There's the Cutty Sark Museum (another newly-restored attraction), a particularly good artisans' street market, lots of high-end food trucks, the Greenwich Mean Time line, a gorgeous park and the ability to walk under the Thames through a marvel of Victorian engineering. Well worth a day out. 

But if you want a unique, up-close look at the Painted Hall ceiling, you need to get there before the end of September. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Unless you plan to live for at least another century.