The Fife Arms

The Fife Arms is a Victorian coaching inn in the village of Braemar, inside the Cairngorms National Park and close to Balmoral and the River Dee. The listed building, in pink and grey granite with timber gables, was remodelled by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, the architect of nearby Crathie Kirk. Its owners, Iwan and Manuela Wirth, who co-founded the gallery Hauser & Wirth, have filled it with more than 14,000 pieces, from antiques to specially commissioned works, so the hotel reads as a living museum of Highland life. Each room and suite is dedicated to a figure or landscape from the region's past; one honours Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island in Braemar. The kitchens rely on Scottish seafood, game and local produce, served in the Clunie Dining Room, the Flying Stag and Gordon's Tea Room, and Bertie's Whisky Bar holds more than 300 whiskies. Days fill with wild swimming, woodland walks, hill trails and country pursuits, with Balmoral close by, and the Albamhor treatment rooms offer massage and acupressure. Families and dogs are both made welcome.