Hotel Bellevue Dubrovnik

Twenty-four metres above the Adriatic on Dubrovnik's Montovjerna peninsula, Hotel Bellevue cuts into the limestone cliff so that nearly every room faces open sea rather than the Old Town rooftops behind it.

The cliff-face pool is the property's sharpest detail — cantilevered over the water with no beach visible below, only Lokrum island three kilometres out. A private beach reaches down the rock by elevator; the water here is cleaner than Banje, Dubrovnik's main tourist strand, due to the westerly current.

Pera Cingrije 7 sits a ten-minute walk from Pile Gate, close enough for the Old Town but outside the summer foot-traffic corridor that clogs Lapad and the port.