If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR144.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Architecturally eye-catching, the futuristic façade of Briig Boutique Hotel could be straight from a sci-fi set. The avant-garde, art-filled interiors are equally sleek and stripped back in style, with a minimalist, monochromatic scheme running throughout each of the 62 light-flooded units. Floor-to-ceiling windows in many of the rooms guarantee glittering sea views from sunrise to sundown, but it’s worth splashing out on one of the upper-level suites for outdoor whirlpools and sun-drenched terraces. The rooftop pool and spa up the relaxation ante, where you’ll sunbathe and swim on repeat until it’s time to tuck into zingy seafood and handmade pasta. From this curious craft, your beach-going galaxy is not so far, far away if you’d like to set your course for the Adriatic’s idyllic islands – as long as you’re happy to settle for a yacht, rather than a spaceship, that is.
Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £154.09 (€180), including tax at 25 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €2.00 per person per night on check-out and an additional resort fee of €0.40 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include a generous buffet breakfast with à la carte choices, plus an irresistible spread of pastries and fresh fruit, washed down with plant-based milks and just-squeezed juices.
Also
The hotel is mostly wheelchair-accessible and has some room options suitable for guests with mobility issues.
Hotel closed
Briig Boutique Hotel is open all year round.
At the hotel
Rooftop sun deck, sauna, gym, charged laundry service, free WiFi. In rooms: iPad, TV, minibar, tea-making kit, and espresso machine, air-conditioning,Tranquillity bath products.
Our favourite rooms
If ‘whirlpool’ is part of your love language, you’ll want to reserve the Executive Suite on the top floor of the hotel. The private terrace is an almost all-day sun-trap, so you can bask in the Dalmatian glow without needing to leave your suite. Double the bubbles with sundowners in the outdoor tub when the peachy light starts to fade.
Poolside
There’s a sky-high swimming pool (open 9am to 9pm) up on the hotel’s sun-soaked rooftop, lined with minimalist loungers which face the shimmering Adriatic Sea.
Spa
Also on the upper floor, just a sunlounger’s length from the pool and terrace, is the compact spa and fitness room – make time for a massage, steam things up in the sauna, or hit the treadmill and be rewarded with coastal views as you run.
Packing tips
The boating brigade will want to bring deck shoes and plenty of linen to stay (and look) cool along Split’s sizzling shoreline.
Also
As you might expect from the design-driven exterior, the hotel’s interiors have a contemporary art-gallery feel. Feast your eyes on colour-popping posters by Croatian painter Boris Bućan, and an abstract installation by Zagreb-born artist Aleksandar Srnec
Take your pick from the patio, every table comes with a sparkling sea view.
Dress Code
Avant-garde, but not like you’ve tried too hard. Beach cover-ups are also perfectly acceptable.
Hotel restaurant
The geometric, boxy booths, and Wegner chairs might make you feel as though you’re seated in a swanky space shuttle, and the menu at Median Restaurant is similarly out-of-this-world fusing the traditional and modern. The futuristic interiors spill out onto a parasol-dotted patio – linger here over freshly-caught seafood and zesty cocktails.
Hotel bar
Sleek styling and slick service awaits coffee drinkers and cocktail sinkers in BarCaffe Bar, plus an extensive wine list which mostly spotlights Croatian labels. Wind down with a whisky in the cigar room, or take a citrus-infused G&T out onto the terrace.
Last orders
Breakfast is from 7am to 11am, lunch from noon until 5pm, and dinner from 6.30pm until 10.30pm.
Room service
Order up to your room using the bedside smart tablet during restaurant hours.
A few sandy steps from Split’s most iconic shoreline, Briig Boutique Hotel enjoys easy access to Bačvice beach – and is just a 15-minute stroll from Diocletian’s Palace, if you’d like to swap sixties modernism for Roman ruins.
Planes
Split International Airport (also known as Resnik Airport) is just half an hour by car, and the hotel can help to arrange private transfers for €70 one-way.
Trains
The main train station in Split (you’ll need to enter Željeznički Kolodvor into maps) is 10 minutes on foot from the hotel, with daily direct trains running from Zagreb.
Automobiles
Croatian beach breaks can be car-free (especially if your trip is mostly going to centre around your sunlounger), but should you need a set of wheels, you can park at the hotel for €10 a day.
Other
Yachters and island-hoppers travelling along the Dalmatian Coast can drop anchor in Split’s marina, which is a 15-minute drive from the hotel.
Worth getting out of bed for
What did the Romans ever do for us? Well, Split has several answers to that question, most notably Diocletian’s Palace – with its gleaming white walls, well-preserved arches, and towering columns. The emperor retired to the Dalmatian Coast and spent his golden years here, but was initially drawn in by the Illyrian city of Salona – you can visit the ruins in the foothills of the Mosor Mountains, and many of its treasures are on display in Split’s Archaeological Museum. Ancient history aside, you can idle away the day on one of the peninsula’s many beaches (Bačvice, Kaštelet, and Ovčice are all delightfully toes-in-the-sand) – but it’s out on the water where you’ll really go below the surface of this cove-speckled shoreline. Daily catamaran trips depart from Split’s marina, or you can set sail on a private yacht charter and hop your way around the Adriatic islands. Unesco-protected Trogir is the closest, and one of the most culturally rich island hops from Split, with its Romanesque-meets-Renaissance architecture and fortified walls. Then there’s Brač Island, which lures castaways towards its horseshoe-shaped, white-pebble beach, where an earthy, cypress scent and the sound of goats bleating from the hills above fill the sea air.
Local restaurants
If you’re venturing into Split for the evening, head for Makarun, a traditional tavern tucked behind the Old Town’s stone walls (and just a two-minute walk from Diocletian’s Palace). Seafood hogs the spotlight here, in the freshly-caught form of platters piled high with buttery shrimps, and lightly-grilled fish dishes topped with Mediterranean vegetables. Swap surf for turf by opting for the homemade pašticada, a slow-cooked Dalmatian beef dish doused in sweet-and-sour sauce. Follow the locals to the Varoš quarter and pull up a chair in Konoba Marjan, a small, family-run restaurant which serves unpretentious plates of seafood risotto and still-simmering stew in a homey, checked-tablecloth setting.
Local cafés
The local custom of fjaka means the coffee culture in Croatia is as strong as its brews. Sightsee as you sip from Lvxor Café on the sphinx-guarded Peristyle Square, which overlooks the St Domnius bell tower, or drink in the sea views from waterside café Žbirac – a local hangout which fronts Bačvice beach, where you’ll be entertained by picigin players diving around in the shallows (this is the birthplace of the traditional Split ball game).
Local bars
Inspired by Barcelona’s Mercado de La Boqueria, Bokeria Kitchen & Wine Bar adds a splash of Spain into Split’s Old Town. Market-fresh, tasty tapas dishes are on the menu if you’re in the mood for a small bite while you drink, but it’s the stacks of wine bottles on the walls which keep the evening crowd coming back to the mosaic-tiled bar.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this design-centric seafront hotel in Split and unpacked their cherry-red Šestine parasols and jars of herb-infused honey, a full account of their Dalmatian beach break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Briig Boutique Hotel in Croatia…
The daring design of Briig Boutique Hotel is sure to split the crowd, but whatever your verdict, it certainly makes a statement. This hard-to-miss, asymmetrically-pleasing sugarcube is Dalmatia’s first-of-its-kind hotel, and the architectural studio behind the slightly fractured façade say – rather wonderfully – that, ‘it looks like someone has sat on it’. Keen-eyed aesthetes will notice a triangular pattern on the external walls and above the pebble-coated bar, which create the effect of fluttering sails – like you’re standing on the deck of a yacht. In fact, the wood-panelled rooms, or so called units, are in keeping with the cabin feel (without the fever), directing your gaze towards the endless blue views, almost as if you could reach out and touch the waves. Most guests tend to gravitate upwards to the rooftop, with its sea-facing pool and horizon-level wellness area, or down to the white sandy stretch of Split’s iconic Ba?vice beach for cooling dips. Whichever swimming or sunbathing spot you choose – poolside or beachfront – the Adriatic will be firmly front and centre.
