Windamere Hotel

The Windamere owes its name to a spelling dodge. The hotel's own story has a group of Darjeeling businessmen turning the Ada Villa boarding house into a hotel company in 1841, though its homepage dates the villa to the late 1880s, so hold that founding year lightly. One shareholder, Mrs. Gertrude Bearpark, hailed from Windermere in the Lake District; the "er" came out, an "a" went in, and Windamere it has been ever since. The hotel stands on Observatory Hill at about 7,500 feet, overlooking the Chowrasta promenade, and says it has never renovated, only updated and restored.

Suites named for the people who slept in them

Rooms are spread across Ada Villa, its Annexe, standalone cottages and The Snuggery, the neighbouring house bought in 1958 from HH The Maharajah of Cooch Behar. The names are a guest book in themselves: Begum Aga Khan, Chogyal of Sikkim, Princess of Siam, Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark among the Colonial Royal Suites, with Tea Planters Suites and cottages like Tinkerbelle's and Forget-me-Not alongside. Gallery captions show fireplaces and sitting areas rather than minibars and mood lighting.

The porridge at 'The Windamere' hotel is, I am told by unimpeachable authorities, unsurpassed in Scotland, wrote the travel writer Jan Morris.

Dinner by candlelight, trains by miracle

The dining room serves Continental and Indian food daily from noon to 9 pm, and the Continental side still carries Roly Poly Pudding and cheese and onion pie; at dinner the lights drop, the music comes from the 1930s to 1950s, and the waiters wear white gloves. Coffee beans from the Baba Budan Hills are hand-roasted over charcoal. On the Snuggery grounds sits the DHR Club, a 19th century stone cottage honouring the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, which a past managing director, Sherab Tenduf-La, saved from auction with his own money before it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Christmas Week, 18 December to 1 January, has by the hotel's account run without interruption since 1841, with a tradition of entertainers from London's West End performing. Bagdogra Airport is 93 km away; the Toy Train from NJP takes around 7.5 hours, and we would argue that is the way to arrive.