Ardanaiseig Hotel, Kilchrenan

Author's product rating:   

Quality of Rooms	Excellent
Standard of Service	Excellent
Quality of Food & Drink	Excellent
Quality of Facilities	Good

Advantages:	location, fantastic views, great food, secluded, amazing gardens
Disadvantages:	the scottish midges !  quite pricey, not easiest to access

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Don't worry about the difficulty in pronouncing or spelling the name of this Highland hotel - you'll probably just end up referring to it as "that wonderful hotel in Scotland" after your visit.

The Ardanaiseig already has a lot going for it. The building is a wonderful example of the Baronial style and is perched on the edge of Loch Awe, surrounding by fantastic views of the rolling Scottish countryside.

Accessibility can be a double edged sword. The hotel is not the easiest to find by car, coming at the end of a long and winding track, which will have you questioning whether you took a wrong terms four miles back. However, this ensures that once safely at Ardanaiseig, you are safe from the outside world until you decide to leave.

There are other ways to approach the hotel though. A truly romantic option is to get yourself to the village of Awe itself, on the opposite banks to the hotel. By prior arrangement, and if it is running, you can get picked up by the hotel's own steam launch - which will ferry you across the Loch. This year a seaplane service will also fly you into the hotel, touching down on the Loch and allowing you to step into the gardens of the hotel.

And the 100 acres gardens are a thing of wonder themselves. Billed as the "Lost Gardens", you can spend hours wandering the myriad of winding paths, discovering new sights, unusual specimens imported from all over the world and hidden features among the gorgeous Rhodadendrums. The Victorian gardens, once neglected, are now in the process of being restored to their former glory.

If you can tear yourself away from the outside, the interior of the hotel is warm and cosy, with a real sense of the historic. The building itself exudes great character and it's eccentric and idiosyncratic uneven corridors and oddly shaped rooms adds to the delight of the place and removes it's as far as possible from the ubiquitous blandness of modern accommodation.

Each and every room is unique, decorated beautifully and most have lovely freestanding baths. It's a great idea to check out the website and pick your favourite room to request when booking. It may be a historic building, but mod cons are included in each rooms, with the usual hotel room equipment, such as kettles and telephones - as well as the nice touches like a hi-fi system and a range of CDs to choose from.

Because of its remoteness, you'll want to dine at the hotel. Believe me, even if it wasn't remote, you'd want to dine at the hotel. Dinner, bed and breakfast is offered as one of the pricing options and I'd advise you to take it. Dining is treated as an experience and guests are very much led by the multi-award winning kitchen team (the hotel has been named in the five best hotel dining experiences by the Glasgow Herald), which produces a tasting menu each night to show off their skills. And skilful they are, making just about everything from scratch on the premises, and using as many local and home grown (check out the fantastic walled vegetable garden if you get the chance) as possible.

Breakfast is also fantastic, with lots of fresh and local tastes to choose from, and the huge portions are designed to fuel the most energetic Highland hill walkers or cyclists.

Pre-dinner and post dinner drinks can be enjoyed in the panelled drawing room, in front of the roaring fire in winter, or if the weather is good, on the garden terrace, admiring the view (while trying to avoid the biting midges, unfortunately).

In short, it's a pretty perfect Highland retreat, and while not cheap, it's not as expensive as the hotel could probably get away with, if they were more concerned with fleecing Americans, than providing a great, memorable experience.