Old Town / Gundulić Square

The Pucić Palace

★★★★★

If you want to wake up inside the walls, the Pucić Palace is the Old Town's grand choice. It occupies a seventeenth-century palace built for the Pucić family, one of Dubrovnik's aristocratic houses, at the corner of Od Puča street right by Gundulić Square, where the morning market sets up beneath your window, and it is a two-minute walk to the Rector's Palace, the Cathedral, Stradun and the old port. The building carries the city's history in its structure. The 1667 earthquake split the palace in two, and a small bridge over the alley still connects the halves; in 1895 it opened as the Hotel De La Ville, later traded as the Dubravka, and after a careful restoration following UNESCO guidelines for the historic centre, it reopened in 2002 as The Pucić Palace. The family were patrons of the arts, including the painter Vlaho Bukovac, and the hotel continues the theme with art and antiques throughout. Rooms keep their original structural beams and are finished with olive-wood floors, hand-made tile mosaics and hand-woven carpets, and the categories run from classic rooms to corner deluxe rooms and heritage suites with views over the square and the rooftops. There are two restaurants, Lucijan and Magdalena, and the hotel offers services that matter in a car-free old town: porterage from the gates, transfers, parking arrangements, beach access for swimming, pet services and newspapers on request. It is a small, intimate hotel, which means personal service and a sense of being a guest in a private house rather than a resort.

Location is the whole argument, and it is a strong one. From the Pucić Palace you can walk the walls at opening, before the day crowds, return for a late breakfast, and step out again after sunset when the cruise passengers have gone and the Old Town belongs to the people who are staying in it. The morning market on Gundulić Square, with its figs, lavender and candied citrus, is literally on the doorstep, and the Jesuit Staircase climbs from the square to the church of St Ignatius. Few hotels anywhere put you this close to the centre of a UNESCO city.

The trade-offs come with the territory. The Old Town is pedestrian, so arriving means a short transfer to the nearest gate and porters for your luggage; the hotel arranges this, and it is worth confirming your arrival time in advance. Like all historic buildings, rooms vary in size and outlook, and the cheapest categories can be compact, so read the room descriptions carefully and pay for a square-view room if you can. Summer nights in the Old Town can be lively, although the square quiets down earlier than the bars around Stradun. There is no pool or spa on site, so for swimming you will use the beach arrangements the hotel offers or the rocks and beaches a short walk away at Banje or Buža.

Book the Pucić Palace for a first visit where you want to see the Old Town at its best hours, for history-minded couples and for short, intense city stays of two or three nights. Pair it with an early walls circuit, a concert at the Rector's Palace during the Summer Festival, and dinner on one of the terraces of the surrounding lanes. If you want sea and pools as well as history, consider splitting your stay: two nights here, then two on the coast at a resort in Lapad or Ploče.