Rijeka nightlife guide

Rijeka is a city that is famed for its nightlife and in addition to the wide variety of clubs on offer in the city you will also find special parties and small festival like events taking place occasionally in some of the former industrial buildings by the city's waterside. Many such events revolve around underground dance music and occur sporadically, but Crkva (meaning church) is the city's premier spot for such sounds each and every week. Spectacular lights and visuals mark this intimate venue, its DJ booth raised and placed centrally in the room to appear like an altar in a church, from where the DJ delivers his/her sermon. They host old school techno nights, hip hop concerts, various styles of house music events, hard dance parties and just about every Croatian DJ worth their salt plays here, alongside international guests who appear roughly once a month.

Every city needs a place like Život. A live music venue where you can really let your hair down, Život offers a stage to visiting indie bands and DJs who play everything from grime to Yugoslavian disco. Decorated like your gran's house on drugs-expect to see UV-blasted dollies and dodgy watercolours-it's an essential part of a night out in Rijeka, and its reasonable price-list draws in a loyal crowd.

This tunnel dug into a railway embankment is heaving most nights, especially at weekends when there’s usually a band and DJs playing techno and/ or electronica. A vaulted stone ceiling, lasers and a good-looking crowd in their twenties and thirties comprise the decor. Getting to the bar, or just finding a place to stand, can be a challenge. The few tables out front fill up in warmer weather.

Near the market, Bačva is a convivial bar by day and a place of varied entertainment by night, with live music, readings and sundry random performances staged. The beer range is huge and seats outside allow you to watch the comings and goings of a busy downtown street.

This branch of a successful Malinska club of the same name is a see-and-be-seen scene full of pumping music and pretty people dressed for success. The decor is mostly white, coloured by fancy lighting. There’s lots of posing pre-midnight, but eventually the disco, hip-hop and techno soundtrack gets dancers moving and the crowd mingling. By day it’s a slick café.

Opened in November 2018, Three Monkeys Bar has been an immediate hit among Rijeka's mid 20's to early 40's crowd thanks to its swish décor, the theatre of its exemplary service and its refined cocktails. A long, thin venue with funky, exposed lighting hanging from above and a DJ sometimes perched at the end of the bar on weekends, it is frequently busy in the evenings with parties or groups of friends savouring cocktails dressed with slices of cucumber or orange zest and served in deliciously chunky glasses. By day, it serves one of the best coffees to be found in the city, although its vast array of high-quality spirits is also available if you're in the mood. All drinks are prepared by knowledgeable, friendly and extremely well-presented staff.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2018, Pommery is one of those places that may not be for everybody but can be great fun with the right people. Very central, with a prominent terrace that gets busy by day, Pommery hosts DJs and drinks promotion nights and charges that little bit extra to encourage the kind of clientele who would be out of place at urban hangouts for a younger crowd.

A slick, modern glass-enclosed structure, sitting all by itself on a pier in the main harbour, houses an upmarket bar that draws a mix of yuppies, tourists, hipsters and hard-drinking barflies. The bar’s terrace is on the sea; inside is a carefully designed, dimly lit space, with high tables and tall stools in the middle of the bar area, and lower chairs with zebra-striped cushions at the two ends. The darkness releases inhibitions, and the techno and trance music inspire a good time. DJs and dancing at weekends.

Down at the harbourfront, this place is best experienced late at night when the two-floor wooden pub with maritime knick-knacks is packed to the rafters with partying twentysomethings, the room zinging a commercial dance and rock soundtrack. It gets busy late on and difficult to get inside. Guinness, Kilkenny and Stella, wines and cheap cocktails complement the standard Ožujsko beer, but the drinks here are secondary to the social buzz.

Specialising in rakija, the local form of grappa that comes in all kinds of flavours, Rakhia is essential a lively urban nightspot which programmes live music on Tuesdays, and DJs and parties Thursdays through Saturdays. Scattered in between are rakija tastings for extensive sampling.