Andrew Walker, Lanarkshire
Voting for their favourite UK city, the readers of Condé Naste Traveller magazine opted for Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh. It marks a return to the top spot for the city, which has now won the accolade three times in the Condé Naste Traveller – Readers’ Travel Awards’ history.
There was also good news for Scotland’s largest city, with Glasgow securing fifth place ahead of stiff competition from Brighton, Cambridge and York.
The top five consisted of:
1. Edinburgh (91.76) 2. Oxford (90.04) 3. London (89.46) 4. Liverpool (87.70) 5. Glasgow (87.50)
Edinburgh received particular praise for architecture, culture and user-friendliness. Liverpool came top on friendliest people, with London remaining top for culture.
In recent years Edinburgh has been gaining an international reputation, being the only UK city to appear in TripAdvisor’s top 25 places to visit in the world. Edinburgh has also been voted the best city break destination for ten years running by the readers of the Guardian and Observer. In addition, Wanderlust magazine placed Edinburgh in the top ten cities in the world back in 2008.
Commenting on the award, Jenny Dawe, Edinburgh City Council leader said: “This result is great news for the city and confirms what we all know: Edinburgh is a great place in which to visit, invest, live, work and study.
“The city has the best of everything, historic buildings, great atmosphere, a vibrant leisure and retail offering, abundant green space, outstanding schools and universities…the list goes on.”
Further successes for Scotland included top spot for The Gleneagles Hotel in the spa category, third and eighth place for The Ardanaiseig Hotel, Argyll, and The Gleneagles Hotel, Perthsire, in the UK leisure hotels category, and thirteenth for The Balmoral, Edinburgh, in the UK business hotels category. The Balmoral’s achievement is all the more noteworthy given that the remainder of the top fifteen hotels all hailed from London.
The 13th annual awards were held on Wednesday at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Mayfair, London.