I really hate to dump on a small, family run hostel, but the Villa Micika needs some overhaul. Like a lot of inns and pensions in the Balkans, the "hotel" is a group of homes really, with full-time residents, maybe some pets, and a few spare rooms for guests. I got to check out a friend's room, and it was fairly nice, clean and kept up well, and unfortunately a bit of a hike from the main building.

My room, however, was in a dense, stern gray brick building. The front door opened to a dark down-staircase and a hallway and finally another door marked DORMITORY. It had all the amenities of a college dorm room -- five bunk beds, one shower, a ratty sofa that may or may not have bedbugs (I made a point of not sitting on it and finding out), and a layer of grime covering everything that no amount of scrubbing would ever remove -- plus the lack of natural light of a nuclear bunker. Staying at the hostel was just a depressing experience because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, our home away from home was a colorless, isolated, run-down, poorly-illuminated basement bunker.

The owners seemed friendly enough, though often inaccessible -- they have a cell phone number instead of a front desk, which I found kind of odd. And a bit frustrating when we needed more soap in our sad bathroom and there's no one to ask. The hostel isn't in Old Town, which is probably where you and a zillion other tourists want to be, but it's not in the worst location either -- a block away from a busy promenade with plenty of restaurants and (presumably better) inns, and a short walk from what passes for Dubrovnik's beach and the bus to Old Town. Which was good, because we needed someplace to be that wasn't our room.