Dubrovnik sprawls well beyond the city walls, to Ploce in the east and the Lapad and Babin Kuk peninsulas in the west, but just about everything worth seeing is within the walled Old Town.
Beaches -- Croatians loosely define beaches as any place the sea meets the land, and while some beaches may have names, they are little more than rocks you can use to jump into the water. One such place is a must-see, if not a must-swim area in Dubrovnik. Just around the corner from the old port you'll find a rocky indentation where those who are confident in their swimming skills routinely take a dip.
There is no such thing as a privately owned beach in Croatia. Nonetheless, several of the hotels east of the port have staked out access routes to sections of the beach for their guests, making it hard for others to get there. Dubrovnik's main public beach, Banje, exists as a beach club.
Bobin Kuk's Copacabana Beach is another choice. Copacabana is a pebble-and-concrete beach with a view of the graceful Dubrovnik bridge and part of the Elafiti Islands. It is one of the few beaches in Dubrovnik with facilities for kids, sports enthusiasts, and swimmers with disabilities. Here you can ride a jet ski, get whipped around on a banana-boat ride, or go parasailing. There are also sea slides for kids. A lift on the concrete part of the beach gives seniors and people with disabilities easy access to the water. Grown-ups can relax in a beach bar or a beach restaurant. At night, the beach bar becomes a cocktail bar and disco.
Day or night, the Eastwest Beach Club (Frana Supila bb. tel. 020/412-220. www.ew-dubrovnik.com) is Dubrovnik's answer for people who want to experience the luxury of a beach hotel without paying beach-hotel prices. Situated on Banje, about 46m (150 ft.) from the entrance to the Ploce (Eastern) Gate, Eastwest is also in the shadow of the upscale Excelsior and Villa Argentina hotels. The club has a restaurant with a view and a sophisticated Dalmatian menu, a cocktail bar with space for dancing, watersports galore, a beach with crystal-clear water, beach attendants, and the unique baldachin. This "bed" on the beach looks like a raised four-poster hung with gauzy curtains that blow in the breeze. You can rent the baldachin for 200kn ($37) per day and enjoy privacy on the beach.
