No-one has stayed in luxury holiday resort Kupari for 20 years. Just a couple of miles away from the Old City of Dubrovnik, the resort boasts five architecturally magnificent hotels, and the beach is laid out at its doorstep.
But after the War of Independence ravaged the country, Kupari was left bomb-scarred, broken and permanently closed. It’s been sitting idle for the past two decades, its bullet holes telling the story of its decline.
Now plans are in place for the old hotels to be spruced up and reopened. The complex will once again be a luxury haven, with one difference: the eldest of the buildings, the hotel Grand, will be kept the way it is. In its glory days, it was known as one of the finest hotels along the Adriatic coast.
Dating from 1920, it was one of the first hotels in the area, and in 1924 it already offered a restaurant, electric lighting, a tennis court, and a football pitch (as well as, intriguingly, its own ambulance). When the rest of the resort welcomes guests again, the hotel Grand will stand as a keepsake from bygone times.
If you’d like to see all five abandoned hotels as they are now, you’d better get down to Kupari soon. It’s a short trip from Dubrovnik, and it’s well worth the journey – decadence never looked so hauntingly beautiful.
