Built in 1925 to receive passengers arriving on the Orient Express at Zagreb's adjacent railway station, the Esplanade Zagreb was conceived from the outset as a grand gesture — a place where the glamour of transcontinental rail travel could be properly received. Designed by Dionys Sunko in a restrained Viennese Secession manner, the white-painted facade rises five storeys above Lenuci's Horseshoe, its colossal Ionic columns and rusticated base carrying the confidence of an institution that knew exactly what it was from day one. The terrace visible in the images — shaded by cream umbrellas and surrounded by olive plantings — brings a Mediterranean looseness to an otherwise central European formality. Inside, the 208 rooms maintain a palette of warm taupe, honey-toned burled wood, and champagne-coloured stripe-weave wallcovering that keeps one foot firmly in the hotel's interwar origins without tipping into pastiche. Guest rooms carry cherry-stained millwork, upholstered headboards with nailhead trim, and writing desks in the tradition of grand European palace hotels. The Zinfandel's restaurant demonstrates the building's strongest surviving interior gesture — veined marble pilasters framing the room, tiered brass-and-crystal chandeliers casting warm light across white-draped tables — while the Oleander bar's curved dark-wood counter, leather barstools, and padded back wall evoke the private club atmosphere that Orient Express travellers would have recognised immediately.

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