Shimla’s glitziest hotel wraps most of its plush rooms around a multistorey piano-bar atrium, yet maintains a discreet sense of colonial-era charm that resonates with its earlier historical incarnation (the original started business in 1903).
There's a 15m indoor pool lined with faux doric columns, and the restaurant (mains ₹1250 to ₹2300) is widely considered the city's best. Some 2km west of Scandal Point, the Cecil is where Mohan Singh Oberoi got his first hotel job, as a clerk, in 1922. He went on to found the luxury hotel chain that bears his name, buying Clarkes and later the Cecil (1944) along the way. It was radically modernised in the 1990s.