I have just returned from 10 days at the Hotel Belleview in Cikat on Mali Losinj in Croatia. We had a beautiful room with a side view of the sea and overlooking the pine forest. The service was superb – for example, there is a pillow menu and the maid brought me a number of pillows to try and find the best. The restaurant was spacious but never felt overcrowded. The menus were extensive – six main courses, 2 soups, buffet starters, three desserts and cheeseboard plus an appetiser on your table. The variety and scope of the dishes was worthy of 5 star standard. However, the food was a bit variable in quality and temperature. This is sad because the chef has designed 5 star dishes which were not always well executed – dry fish, sometimes cold etc. However the beef was outstanding. I ordered roast beef of English cut expecting a typical roast beef dinner. They had roasted a whole fillet and then sliced it very thickly – about half an inch thick and it was perfectly pink and so soft you could have eaten it without teeth! Another “Marinated beef steak” turned out to be a 3 inch piece of fillet – again requiring no chewing – melted in your mouth.
The complex is extensive, with 3 seawater pools – 2 outside – freezing when we were there- and an indoor heated pool – gorgeous! This was part of the SPA area – Health Farm facilities – sauna, steam rooms, hot stone relaxing beds, hot water beds, aroma therapy showers, relaxing rooms – all free except for the treatments. Also a plentiful supply of beach towels. The front of the hotel down to the sea is paved over with “Beaches” with recliners and steps down into deep water, so no paddling through seaweed and pebbles etc. to get into the sea (which was VERY cold when we were there in late September.) There are many areas with sunbeds scattered throughout the complex as well as numerous hot tubs! No problems at all in finding a sunbed in sun or shade in spite of the hotel being full when we arrived.
The cleanliness of the whole complex needs mentioning. Rooms cleaned twice a day and towels changed twice as well. I thought this was excessive – we did not put our towels in the bath as instructed if we wanted them changing and hung them on the towel rails. However, they were still changed – not very green.
I must mention the superbly trained staff. They all spoke English, German and Italian and our waiter told us they have a 3 month training period when they learn or brush up their languages as well as their other customer related skills.
The surrounding area is very beautiful, with coves and pine forests. The little town of Mali Losinj is very pretty and can be reached by bus to the harbour area or by “Noddy” train – like children’s train with funnel and open carriages, running on the road – to the centre of town – terminus at Lidls! There are plenty of bikes to hire as well as water sports around the little bay at Cikat and apparently there are beautiful walks in the vicinity – not tried by us – too lazy and arthritic!
All in all, a super place to relax in and well worth the dire transfer from Pula. – 6-7 hours – 2 of which were spent at the airport waiting for the next flight, which was delayed, to fill our coach. Our return transfer was much speedier in a minibus which took 3 hours, including the ferry crossing. (If you are feeling flush the hotel has a small private plane from Pula to the island for E175 each way – 20 minutes!!!)
