Artists, squatters turn prison into hostel

Fancy spending the night in a former military prison that is now a youth hostel with an artistic twist? In Slovenia you can, and with a clear conscience about your ecological footprint.

The technicolor building in Ljubljana was originally a jail built by the occupying Austro-Hungarian army in 1882 and remained in use until Yugoslavia fell apart in the early 1990s.

When Slovenia became independent in 1991, a group of artists and squatters prevented the building's demolition, opening the way a metamorphosis into Hostel Celica, which means "cell" in Slovene, in 2003.