This sprawling Newari brick hotel lives up to its name, with grand entrances, winding corridors and an impeccably trimmed garden terrace looking out over a natural amphitheatre of peaks. While part of the hotel collapsed in the 2015 earthquake, 80% was salvaged and reconstituted as a new wing with classic architectural detail and fine views.
The dignified rooms are split between here and several very cosy cottages nestled in a wooded hillside below, with rustic wood-fire furnaces (make sure yours has been aired out in the off season). These take some legwork to reach so opt for the main building if that's an issue. Everyone will enjoy the atmospheric restaurant rooted in home-grown ingredients.
Nagarkot (7,000 feet) is the Kathmandu Valley’s viewing platform – a straggling ridge northwest of the city with the Himalaya etched across the horizon. The Fort stands a little to the north of the main village, and counts a fair few hotels and guesthouses as neighbours, though none reach its high standards.
The garden (juniper, olive and walnut trees and a host of flowers) is at its best in spring, the Himalayas are at their clearest in autumn and winter. Whatever the season, it’s the great outdoors that exercises the most appeal here. Guided whole-day treks with a sumptuous picnic, jeep trips or just hiking for few hours are all alluring possibilities.
The Fort’s meeting room does make a stab at attracting conferences, but this is primarily a leisure destination. In keeping with the general ambience, service is laid-back and matey rather than any of that “bow/scrape/rightaway-sir/madam” stuff. The library is well used, with many guests exchanging what they’ve just read for something new.
Whether staying in one of the six cottages (with 15 rooms between them) or one of the 23 rooms in the main building, it would be a very dull guest who failed to appreciate the architecture: wide wooden balconies, broad paved terraces and sheltering colonnades with plenty of warm unadorned brick. The bathrooms combine well-polished cabinets with modern plumbing (showers, no tubs). The duvets are extra comforting. There’s nothing so pedestrian as television.
It says a lot about The Fort that guests are encouraged to order items off the menu, which the kitchen rather sweetly undertakes to provide on the condition that a) they have the ingredients and b) they are not too busy. Breakfast can be American, continental or Indian. Lunch and dinner follow a similar international pattern. Guests can dine in the restaurant, but it comes a poor second to the garden and its panoramas, assuming the weather’s not too chilly.
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Getaway Nepal Adventure (P.) Ltd.
Thamel Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel: +977 98510 38 908
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