Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik

"They don't make hotels like this anymore, but they can still renovate them. Built in 1895, the Imperial, strategically located just outside the walls of the old city, entertained visiting royalty, plutocrats, and celebrities for nearly a hundred years. Then, following the shelling of Dubrovnik by Serbian guns in 1991, it abruptly became a refugee shelter, and remained one for a decade. Hilton reopened it on May 1, 2005. Every inch of the place has been refinished and modernized, but you can't fake those imperial proportions, from the semicircular terraces to the broad setbacks of the balconies--it is not merely big, but intimately big, however contradictory that might sound. You never feel overwhelmed; there is no sacrifice of scale to gigantism. The service is magnificent and unobtrusive. You can't, for example, obtain the same day's edition of a British or French newspaper at any newsstand in Dalmatia, but at the Imperial they will supply you with a full-size computer printout. The choice rooms are 332 and 334, which are blessed with both balconies and the most comprehensive view, taking in the whole sweep of the old city and the sea beyond it."