Travellers' ChecksCroatia’s Instagram-friendly abandoned luxury hotels, popular with urban explorers and budding photographers
- Damaged during the country’s war of independence, the properties are remnants of a once-thriving tourism industry
The charming old two-star Palace Hotel on the popular Croatian island of Hvar has reopened after a long renovation as the five-star Palace Elisabeth, Hvar Heritage Hotel. Recalling Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who financed its construction in the late 19th century, the hotel has had its room count lowered from 78 to 45 and been tastefully refitted and refurnished.
Another former Croatian “palace” hotel, which is unlikely to be making a return, is the Haludovo Palace Hotel, further up the Adriatic coast, on the island of Krk. Opened in 1972 – when Croatia was part of communist Yugoslavia – by Penthouse magazine owner Bob Guccione, the Haludovo Palace Hotel and Penthouse Adriatic Club Casino went bankrupt the following year, though remained open as a hotel until the early 1990s. It’s a popular site for urban explorers, who like to record their exploits on social media.
Croatia is, in fact, home to scores of abandoned luxury hotels, including five properties in the former seaside resort of Kupari, near Dubrovnik, which were badly damaged in the 90s during the Croatian war of independence. Another is the Hotel Marina Lucica, a coastal naturist resort that met a similar fate, as did the palatial Hotel Jadran, just to the south, and the art-nouveau Grand Hotel Miramare in Crikvenica to the north.
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