Opatija (Italian: Abbazía) is a town in Croatia. Located at the
foot of the mountain and nature park Učka, Opatija offers an
excellent choice for vacation in summer and winter. Beautiful
nature, parks, old Austro-Hungarian villas, promenades and beaches
have been attracting tourists from Europe and the world for 160
years. Opatija is the leading tourist destination in the Republic of
Croatia for the organization of congresses, seminars and
conferences. Through festivals, concerts, exhibitions and other
cultural and sporting events, Opatija offers cultural and
entertainment facilities throughout the year.
Opatija is
located on the eastern coast of the Istrian peninsula, and lies at
the foot of Mount Učka. It is the largest city and the center of the
Liburnian area, which stretches from Plomin, along the coast and the
mountain massif of Učka and Ćićarija to Rupa and Kastav.
Opatija is a tourist
town, picturesque in appearance. With its tradition and appearance,
it stands out from other tourist cities because its, albeit
short-lived history is very vivid.
Opatija's climate is
sub-Mediterranean, which means that it is not like in Dalmatia, but
the temperatures are slightly lower, and there is more rainfall and
cloudy days a year than in the southern parts of the Adriatic.
Church of St. Jacob
Villa Angiolina (1844)
Opatija park
Lungomare
Grand Hotel Kvarner (1884) - the first modern hotel on
the Croatian Adriatic coast
Villa Amalia (1890)
Art pavilion
"Juraj Šporer"
Fontana - Helios and Selena - the work of sculptor
Hans Rathautsky (1889)
The Girl with the Seagull - the work of
sculptor Zvonko Car, set by the sea in 1956.
Madonna (1891)
Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Hotel
Imperial (1885)
Summer stage
American Gardens Opatija
In Opatija, the first eight stars were placed on the Slatina
promenade. Opatija accepted the idea, which Zagreb rejected, to make
famous stars on the famous Slatina promenade, which was opposed by
many citizens of Opatija, considering it a bad copy that does not
show Opatija's specificity on which to build tourism. Dr. Amir
Muzur, the mayor of Opatija, accepted and signed a contract in which
he supports the creation of these stars. One local singer gave away
his star for his 34th birthday. His name is Drazen Turina Shajeta.
On March 18, celebrity stars were discovered. This discovery awaited
many people with great curiosity. One of them was the poet Dragutin
Tadijanović, who also had his own star.
The stars were
awarded to: Ivo Robić, Janica Kostelić, Dražen Petrović, Krešimir
Ćosić, Oliver Dragojević, Miroslav Krleža, Dragutin Tadijanović,
Miroslav Radman and Nikola Tesla. , scientific, artistic and other
work.
The project has experienced numerous criticisms and
controversies, and so far has not fulfilled the basic clauses
written in the contract.
In any case, "old" in Opatija terminology means the pre-tourist
era, ie Opatija before 1884 and a series of plastic surgeries
directed by the Southern Railway Society (Südbahngesellschaft). Just
as the old reasoning of local fishermen, sailors and weavers
languished, so did their cottages disintegrate at the expense of
this new tourist logic - either left to General Director Friedrich
Schüler, or transformed under the same owners into catering
barracks.
Pre-tourist Opatija
Getting along with the "old"
Opatija means immersing yourself in a street grid that is
significantly different from today's. If we wanted to take a walk
along the pre-tourist main street today, a series of surprises would
await us. The northernmost part of the "ancient Marshal Tito Street"
had the same course as today: from Škrbić to the Market Square, time
touched people and buildings, but not the street. However, you
should further step into the infamous side quarter of Radnička
cesta, winding from Mrkat to the hill, pass between Barić and
Riječka banka and descend to Ribarski trg (Piazza vecchia) behind
today's photo shop Luigi. Fish, fruits and vegetables were sold here
long before the Market of our time was built. Squeezed between the
villas Dalibor (with the office of the "Society of Saints Cyril and
Methodius for Istria" and the apartment of Victor Emperor Emin) and
Ertl (later, by the owner of the bakery, Rosenberger) on one side,
and Ježica on the other, the old main street in the port rose to a
square called Stendardo, by the flag they would hang here on the
feast. There, at the intersection with today's St. Florian, until a
couple of decades ago, the people of Učka sold wood and coal from
burnt donkeys. Going down Ulica sv. Florijana, the old main street
would take us further, to the Palme Hotel: here we return to M. Tito
and to the main street of today's Opatija. But already under the
Paris cafe we have to turn again, into the narrow Tesla street.
Here awaits us the clumsy megalomaniac construction of the villa
Rudovits (alias Schanzer), the chapel of St. Cosmas, Dawn and the
remains of the remains of the once famous Opatija cinema. There, in
front of Zora, on the ex-highway there is a staircase (squeezed
between house numbers 118 and 120 in Ulica m. Tita) which on the
other side of today's main street continues in the gap between Villa
Devana and Hotel Atlantik: it was the junction of the church of Sv.
Jakov with the street network of old Opatija. Following the logic of
the old highway, however, we would continue further, The Stairs of
Theodore Billroth and Edita Stern (today on that road we intersect
Dobrila Street and Nova Road), all the way to Vrutki Street.
The second artery of Opatija, the junction of two still living
streets today - E. Kumičića and Vrutki, was the longest road
continuity, intersected only in our century built New Road (1908).
The shortcut that connected the diverging streams (E. Kumičić-Vrutki
and the lower street - "pra-M. Tita") after the bifurcation near the
market, was today's Ulica sv. Florian (ex M. Gorky).
The
houses of old Opatija were not only grouped around these roads, but
partly followed the ancient logic of fleeing the coast, which
exposes them to many dangers. An extremely large group of houses
thus formed Jelenkino or Jelenkina Vas, an independent settlement
located at that time, located around the northern part of today's B.
Želea Street with a continuation towards Put u Bregi and E. Bošnjaka
Street. Here, about 25% of Opatija's houses were concentrated on a
relatively small area - in the place furthest from the church of Sv.
Jakov, and the importance of the "settlement" was certainly given by
the tavern of Matija Dujmić at number 88.
Of course, despite
all the interventions that tourism has imposed on the city, some
facades from the older era have withstood the test of time, often
facing the narrower foreign sea, as prescribed by the rules of
protection from the pirate eye. Although many houses, marked on the
only pre-tourist cadastral plan (1820), have disappeared, such as,
for example, houses on the site of today's fountain in Slatina, or
Paskvale Jačić's house in front of the main entrance to the Imperial
Hotel, or Jurković Suc's house on the site of a concrete swimming
pool. villa Amalia, many have remained in place, surviving abundant
reconstructions and expansions. Such is the house at M. Tita 78
(Maxi-bar), the whole core around Vrutka 23-27 (perhaps the oldest
residential core of Opatija in general, where the first colonists
from the Giusti family settled, near the Vrutki stream and on the
edge of church lands) , or a house at Teslina 4. The Vrutki 15
house, next to the Šikićs' house above the parking lot at Tržnica,
has preserved an extremely rare "meeting" for Opatija (entrance
covered platform), and Sv. Florijana 12, where the poet Zoran
Kompanjet was born and where the poet Marija Trinajstić lives,
behind thick walls and under a low ceiling still has a kitchen
"hood" (air outlet) over an antique stove.
Take a walk
through the "old" Opatija of Vrutka, Jelenkina Vas, Strojbarić,
Križišće and Sv. Florian, means to inhale the smell of lunches,
listen to family quarrels and peek into the everyday life of the
descendants of those who could not build Opatija, but have always
maintained it with their blisters as a gift of a rare plant in their
own garden.