This impressive Scottish Baronial flight-of-Victorian-fancy is Banff’s greatest landmark. Work on the turrets and cornices and the thick nine-story granite walls below began in 1888, but things were massively rebuilt in the 1920s. All this resulted in a labyrinthine pile that both celebrates the bygone days of the genteel travel and somehow mirrors, maybe even enhances, the majesty of its natural surroundings.

History

The hotel was the largest in the world when it opened and one of a number of grand giant lodgings (including Chateau Lake Louise and Yoho’s Emerald Lake) built by the Canadian Pacific Railway, in the hope of using the mix of superb scenery and luxury to fill their carriages. The results were a massive hit, and still are, which ensures the 828-room hotel is always bustling.

Famously though, things didn’t start too smoothly. The hotel was built back-to-front, with the kitchens enjoying great valley views while guestrooms looked blankly into monotonous forest – a problem partly fixed by tacking on a rotunda.

Sightseeing & Tours