Nuwara Eliya, Colombo & the West Coast, Sri Lanka

Slip back to a more genteel era, when tea was taken on the lawns at 4 o’clock sharp, as the mist rolled up the mountains. Set amid elegant gardens at the heart of Sri Lanka’s tea growing district, the Grand is a textbook mid-18th-century mansion, built to house the British Governor of the island in suitably flamboyant mock-Tudor style. Sumptuously restored, it now serves as the island’s foremost heritage hotel – a popular retreat for the city’s top brass as well as foreigners seeking a taste of bygone eras.