Chris Bancroft, above, is quite a guy. Hotel kid grows up to win all kinds of UK awards and scholarships, Cornell and The Newt in Somerset, when he moved north of the border to what is arguably the most charmingly eccentric hotel in Scotland, if not Europe.

The Fife Arms’ amazing art is carefully explained in an impressive tome, The Fife Arms, by Dominic Bradbury. The fuchsia-highlighted Art Deco cocktail bar, above, is Elsa’s.