Hostel Celica is a converted military prison

Spending the night in a converted military prison is not half as grim as it sounds. Sure, there's shared toilets, strict rules about noise and smoking, and rows of barred cells behind which inmates once languished.

But the rest of Ljubljana's chic Hostel Celica is nothing short of deluxe. A bunch of top Slovenian and international artists had a shot at revamping the cells on level 1 and the result is something befitting a boutique hotel. Naturally, there's bars on the windows and not a lot of space in the cells after beds, but few people come here expecting to swing cats.

The hippest youth hostel in Europe, Hostel Celica opened to great fanfare in 2003 and has received a steady stream of wannabe prisoners ever since. Downstairs, the hostel has an Oriental-style cafe and hosts live music nights and art exhibitions. Guided tours of the building are offered every day.

Hostel Celica is located in central Ljubljana, roughly five minutes' walk from the main train and bus stations. It is housed in the former Austro-Hungarian military barracks, which were demilitarized after Slovenia's independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

In the same grounds as the hostel is an autonomous cultural zone called Metelkova, occupied by squatters and consisting of social centres, theatres, galleries, nightclubs and bars. This controversial complex is Ljubljana's answer to Copenhagen's self-governing neighbourhood of Christiania and is struggling to survive government attempts to raze it to the ground.