I came to Dubrovnik for the first time on a 2 week holiday in 2000. We visited the hotel Dubrovnik Palace, which was then a ghost town. Evidence of the war was everywhere, with scrapnel on the walls, holes in the concrete, broken glass, grafitti ... the hotel had seen better days. To show the length of time the hotel had been derelict you could see palm trees growing on the balconies. It was an eerie feeling to walk around. In 2004 the hotel reopened as a 5 star under the ownership of Goran Strok (Donald Trump of Croatia). Transformation!
