Restaurant to Avoid - Konoba Lanterna, Dubrovnik (Croatia)

When a surprise thunderstorm hit Dubrovnik one afternoon, we were soaked, both from the rain above, and the rainwater quickly accumulating on the ground below. After running around and looking at a few menus, we stumbled upon Konoba Lanterna, which had a decent-looking menu typical of Croatian "Konobas", and decent prices as well. What followed was easily our worst culinary experience in Croatia.

Konoba Lanterna is a harmless looking restaurant located at 2 Nikole Gučetića in Dubrovnik's old town. It's not to be confused with the Konoba Lanterna in Mlini, near Dubrovnik on the Dubrovnik Riviera (which we haven't been to so cannot comment on). It's located on one of the narrow side streets in Dubrovnik's old town, next to a pizzeria and another restaurant that we can't remember. It has a sidewalk patio that looks okay, but not amazing and not awful.

The waiter gave us a seat inside at a tiny table, barely big enough for two plates. The seat on my chair was broken, not attached to the chair at all, and it kept slipping when I moved around. We got salads to start, and while my wife's was passable, the lettuce in mine clearly had not been washed, and there was dirt and grime on it. Disgusting.

When we got the main courses, Calamari for my wife and Ćevapčići (a Balkan style grilled mince-meat), they looked okay at first, but that changed as soon as we put them in our mouths. The Ćevapčići was extremely tough and chewy, but the calamari was even worse. The fishy taste in the calamari was overwhelming, and we're pretty sure it had gone bad. My wife could only eat about three pieces before she gave up. In addition, there were somehow a number of sardines mixed in with the squid. Luckily the french fries were okay and my wife was able to get something to eat, but when she asked for ketchup, the waiter kind of laughed (get over it, North Americans like ketchup with their fries!), and brought us a bottle that was pretty much empty, meaning we had to ask for another bottle, which seemed to really annoy him.

After we finished eating, we sat around for 10 or so minutes with the waiter not coming by at all. Finally I had to go seek him out to ask for our bill. When we got out, the rain had stopped, but we both agreed that wandering around in the rain for that hour would have been more enjoyable than the meal we just experienced.

Hotel to Avoid: Hotel Park, Korčula (Croatia)

Our first anti-recommendation, the hotel that inspired this site, is the Hotel Park in Korčula Town on the island of Korčula in Croatia.

We booked this hotel on Booking.com. Based on the photos there, the hotel seemed very basic in its furnishings, but at least looked to be clean and somewhat up-to-date. The pictures couldn't have been more misleading. The hotel seemed like it was stuck in the Cold War. The rooms were dingy, dirty and looked like they hadn't been updated in over 30 years. There was no air conditioning. The bathroom was grimy and dimly lit. The remote control for our tiny TV didn't work.

The breakfast, which was only open from 7:00-9:30 AM, was of poor quality and the breakfast room, which looked quite nice in the pictures, had more of a high school cafeteria feel to it. There was no elevator anywhere in hotel, which is a pain when you have big suitcases and are staying a couple of floors up from ground level.

Worst of all was the service. From the front desk to the lunch room, anyone you dealt with seemed miserable, unfriendly, and annoyed if you asked them anything. When we checked in, we asked if they had a map of the area (a common feature of most hotels), and the woman seemed really put out, and of course told us that they didn't have any. There were times we went there and there was no one at the desk, and other times when there was someone there, we had to wait for them to finish playing on Facebook before they would come to help us.

No one being at the desk was interesting, because while we were there, we asked if they had a luggage room where we could store our bags after checkout while waiting for our afternoon ferry. They of course did not have a luggage room, but said we could leave them in the lobby, but its safe because there is always someone at the front desk. Not so safe afterall, I guess.

Our last night at the hotel, a Tuesday night, there was a rock concert in a courtyard right in front of the hotel. It lasted until 2:00 AM. No one at the hotel had told us that this would be going on. Not when we booked the hotel, not when we checked in, nothing. It was impossible for us to sleep. We tried closing our windows, and while the music was quieter, we could still here it, and the lack of air conditioning made the room unbearably hot.

When we went to complain about it the next day, the woman at the front desk didn't care, and seemed annoyed that we were unhappy. She said that they can't be expected to notify all of their guests, which is just ridiculous. If we had known about this concert, we wouldn't have booked the hotel. We asked to file a complaint, and she gave us a complaint book. We wrote our complaint, and gave her the book. Not surprisingly, she just stuck the book back on its shelf without looking at it. It probably still hasn't been read.

We can't recommend NOT booking this hotel highly enough. The one nice feature it has, its waterfront location, is something that is shared by many other hotels in town. Try checking out one of them first, or check out private accommodations there in town. People will meet you at the ferry offering rooms.

Welcome to our site

Hi everyone, welcome to Places To Avoid, a site where travellers can share their horror stories of awful restaurants, horrible hotels, and other tourist attractions that people should avoid. We were inspired to start this site after a recent visit to Croatia, where we enjoyed almost everything we did, with a couple of notable exceptions. We stayed at one hotel where the service was so bad, and the accommodations were so subpar that we couldn't imagine that anyone could enjoy staying there. And a few days later, escaping from a rainstorm, we went to a restaurant that looked "okay" but not great, and were disappointed to find that "okay" was actually about 80 steps up from where this restaurant was. Just awful.

Though from Canada originally, we have spent the past few years living in Europe and travelling around as much as possible. We've had a ton of great experiences, but every now and then we've stayed at a hotel or eaten at a restaurant that was just so bad, and wished that someone had warned us not to stay or eat there. Travel books always tell you where to go, but they never tell you where not to go. So, with that in mind, we started this site to let travellers know where not to go when travelling around.

We'll start off with a few anti-recommendations of our own from our recent travels, and hope to keep adding more as we travel more. Of course, reader submissions are welcomed and encouraged.