I was pretending to be Rapunzel – sitting on a window ledge at the top of my monastery, twirling my hair and watching waves crash on the rocks – when my eye was caught by a woman looking up from a yacht moored in the bay below. Normally, I might have been slightly jealous of the tousle-haired blonde. Her craft was a classic racer: about 50ft, elegantly designed and constructed from golden, polished wood – the dream vessel in which to sail the Adriatic. But I was in Lopud 1483, one of Croatia’s most beautiful private homes, and from the look on her face, she was clearly besotted with what I had. “I win,” I thought smugly, giving her a cheery wave from my eyrie, before slipping off to put on a kaftan for lunch.
My instincts were right: the blonde was besotted. But that’s because, as I discovered when she casually strolled across the lawn to my lunch table, Lopud 1483 is hers. “I hope you’re enjoying my bedroom,” she smiled, introducing herself and apologising for popping in to pick something up. “I think it’s one of the most beautiful rooms in the world.”
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza has certainly slept in some beautiful rooms. The daughter of Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Swiss billionaire, and Fiona Campbell-Walter, the New Zealand-born British model, she grew up in palatial surrounds. Her family’s art collection rivals that of the Queen and some works are housed in the Palace of Villahermosa in Madrid, while others are in homes spreading from Lopud to Paris to Jamaica. Having married (then divorced) Karl von Habsburg, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Francesca has slept in a fair few castles in Europe.
After stepping inside the ruined monastery on Lopud island in 1993, Thyssen-Bornemisza says she cried. “It was so beautiful – and totally ruined,” she says. So, while she was in the country, helping to restore extraordinary art “ruined and damp in cellars” after the break-up of Yugoslavia, she decided that she would do up the 15th-century Franciscan monastery too.
As someone who doesn’t do anything by halves – whether that’s being a model, a film-maker or, more recently, an explorer and modern-art collector – Thyssen-Bornemisza called on some big names to help her. Frank Gehry was on hand to advise on the architecture, German engineers were employed to strengthen the building’s foundations and Paola Lenti designed bespoke furniture. After 20 years of restoration, she opened the handsome monastery last year as a five-suite exclusive-use villa. She and her children were its first clients over lockdown. Then she launched the adjoining castellated fortress as an entertaining space for guests to watch films in the open air, enjoy concerts, do yoga – or, as I did, sip cold Croatian wine on the rooftop at sunset listening to the cicadas chirrup after a visit to her olive grove, which features a David Adjaye-designed pavilion housing a light installation by Olafur Eliasson.
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What’s the monastery like to stay in? Stepping into its sacred halls is, to say the least, overwhelming. Lopud is a tiny, car-free, forested island (population: about 200) and the monastery is by far its biggest and most impressive building, and the sight that everyone takes pictures of as the daily ferries roll in. But once you’ve settled yourself within its golden sandstone walls, everything is remarkably cosy. Airy bedrooms are furnished with sumptuous linen-lined beds and, in the main bedroom, graffiti spelling out “IL DUCE” – left by occupying Italian soldiers during the Second World War – sits alongside crosses carved by monks on the walls. There are contemporary Italian bathrooms and a mix of priceless family pieces (14th-century reliquaries, Flemish tapestries, Renaissance oil paintings) alongside 21st-century velvet sofas. Tables are overhung with serious modern art and equipped with glossy art books and bowls of exotic flowers. Big beanbags adorn the lawn, so you can tan while watching yachts sail past, and olive-tree shaded benches beckon from the scented medicinal garden that is inspired by the former monks’ in-house pharmacy.
There’s no pool, but who needs one when you can descend into an underground cavern (housing paddleboards, wetsuits and towels) and step out through a castle door onto rocks and into the sea? There’s no gym, but a platform in the castle, stocked with weights, and the island’s steep paths, running alongside churches and gardens hanging with ripe grapes and figs, provide more than enough exercise.
Staff are constantly on hand. If you fancy a massage, the friendly housekeeper, Klara, will summon a muscular and intuitive therapist armed with botanical oils. Feel like going out to sea? An entertaining captain from Dubrovnik Boats will whisk you off to explore the Blue Cave, swim in remote bays, picnic on Mjlet’s National Park’s beaches or eyeball mammoth superyachts in the Adriatic heading for the hip Bowa restaurant for champagne-fuelled lunches. Feeling peckish? Thyssen-Bornemisza’s chef, Marin Markovic, will conjure up magical lunches of flower and herb-strewn salads in the garden, squid-ink risottos beneath soaring castle ramparts and seafood feasts in the lamplit cloister for dinner. All with, of course, delicious Croatian wines.
On leaving, I could see why Thyssen-Bornemisza didn’t want to wave her castle goodbye, even if she did have one of the most beautiful classic boats on Earth as back-up.
From €10,000 a night for up to ten people, half-board, lopud1483.com
Maslina
When the French financier and property developer Daniel Truchi bought some olive groves to the north of Hvar island, it was his daughter Maud, apparently, who persuaded him to create a resort. Her influence explains why Maslina – “olive” in Croatian – feels so youthful and green, from the cascades of plants tumbling down walls and its local herb-infused offerings to the wooden e-bikes at the door.
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Unlike the party town of Hvar, the quieter Stari Grad to its north is a favourite with wealthy yachties and relaxed travellers in search of a more authentic Croatian break. Hence Maslina’s instant popularity this summer with glamorous young couples wanting a chilled week away; tanning beside the pretty infinity pools, eating ceviche at the little seaside bar, or playing with their toddlers in the kids’ club.
Its relaxed atmosphere is thanks to Aalto, the Split-based architecture firm, which has combined a minimalist Japanese aesthetic with a French sense of style and a Croatian earthiness. In the bedrooms, fine white-linen curtains waft beside minimalist Istrian-made wood furnishings, natural Coco-Mat beds and iroko-wood Japanese bathtubs. In the indoor-outdoor living areas singed black Japanese furniture and woodland-hued ceramics contrast with acres of local cream-coloured marble – including a 15-tonne block that functions as the reception desk whose cracks are filled, Japanese-style, with veins of gold.
Although most guests seemed content to migrate between bar, pool and restaurant, enjoying feasts created by the Michelin-starred French chef Serge Gouloumès – sometimes complex tasting menus, other times deliciously simple seafood – there’s plenty of other things to do here. The Pharomatiq Spa, set below the hotel, leads to a gym fitted with the latest equipment for TRX suspension classes, bootcamps, Pilates and kids’ classes. Truchi’s son offers reflexology and sound-healing gong baths, plus yoga and meditation in a spa garden. Opposite the five spacious treatment rooms, heady with the scents of lavender and local herbs, there’s a Turkish hammam, Finnish sauna and ice pool, which are the centre of activity for the seven and 14-day health retreats. With so much nature around, though, it felt odd to hide myself away in a building. Instead, I cycled and walked through forests, explored the characterful Stari Grad, and soaked in the scents of sea salt, pine and lavender while riding to the Unesco-protected Stari Grad Plain and its 4th-century dry-stone walls. And I swam and swam in the clear, crisp Croatian waters; from the rocks, beyond ten coveted loungers and cool black-crocheted umbrellas, and off the cabana-lined sandy beach near by.
In a dream world, I would go back with nine friends and take the private Villa Uvala, with its private pool and seaside garden, and book the resort’s smart speedboat to explore the coves of the Pakleni archipelago, and Brac and Vis. Although I may wait a year; Truchi and his partners are building villas between the hotel and the beach that will disrupt the calm for a bit. Before, no doubt, making Maslina even more popular than it already is.
Doubles from €240, maslinaresort.com
Villa Nai 3.3
When someone builds a hotel on land that’s been in their family since 1607, they’re always going to be passionate about it and Goran Morovic is particularly so. His land on Dugi Otok island is planted with thousands of olive trees, the oil of which keeps winning him awards around the globe, and he is an engineer who wants this hotel to be his legacy.
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Designed by one of Croatia’s leading architects, Nikola Basic, the hotel has been sunk into the side of a hill like a semi-circular bunker fronted with glass and constructed from the unearthed stone.
The result is a remarkably soothing contemporary retreat. Following the topography of the hill – with a flat space carved above it for a helipad and tennis court – the airy, stone-built living spaces and eight suites open out onto shaded verandas, where meals are served. Inside, spacious suites are fitted with what Morovic proudly declares is “the best you can get”: marble bathrooms by Agape, sleek Italian Giorgetti furniture, Frette towels and vast soft beds by the Croatian company Crespo.
After the indulgent breakfast (choose from fresh juice, super-light French-style pastries, local cheese and meat platters), you can hike for ten minutes through the olive groves to the sea, or get a lift to one of the island’s beautiful sandy beaches and nature reserve. Or you can just hang out, swimming in the long infinity pool, having Balinese massages and cold-plasma facials, enjoying Finnish saunasand soaking in the spa’s indoor salt pool – allfollowed by a crash course in Croatian wines at night. For such a tiny hotel, Villa Nai 3.3 has a remarkably wide food offering, from simple fire-cooked Dalmatian fish and Galician steaks at the casual Grotta to seven-course seafood-based feasts featuring specialities such as bakalar (cod ballswith hollandaise). All are served with the olive oil, the flavour of which is attributed to the 3.3 daysof snow they get on average every year (hencethe name).
However, it’s the hotel’s situation, at the heart of the Kornati National Park, that will draw most visitors. It’s only an hour’s ferry ride from Zadar on the mainland, but the park, composed of about 140 islands, is almost uninhabited. Its raw and bleak rocky landscapes are broken occasionally by ancient stone walls and dotted with tiny churches.
The day I spent exploring by boat reminded me why you really come to Croatia: for its luminous blue waters and seas churning with fish; characterful old ladies selling homemade fig jam and lavender bath salts at the market in the port; horizons broken only by the outline of yachts; and coves with no one else there. Although, returning to a strong massage and fire-roasted lobster beneath an unpolluted star-strewn sky was also pretty good.
Doubles from £610, villanai.com
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Scott Dunn can arrange a six-night stay in Croatia from £5,800 per person with three nights’ B&B at Maslina Resort in a four-bedroom villa and three nights at Lopud 1483 on an exclusive, half-board basis, with return flights and private transfers, based on eight travelling (scottdunn.com)
