Opatija tourism

In any case, it’s dimensions were already altered by the builder of villa Angiolina, Iginio Scarpa, who wanted to make it suitable for his yacht, and it got its definitive shape during the interventions and expansions executed at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Next to the present-day restaurant Galija (ex Padovan, Jedro) was the one-time customs branch-office, and during the Italians today’s Yachting Club was the canoeist club (Club dei canottieri).

The building of Villa Angiolina certainly marked the beginning of the tourist epoch in the history of Opatija. in 1844 Opatija was a relatively large settlement with about 120 houses, clustered mainly around plots further away from the sea coast and chiefly oriented towards fishing and seafaring.

The first, northern phase of the path (Volosko-Slatina) was completed in 1889, when Opatija officially becomes a Health Resort and the southernmost section (that connected Opatija with the promenade in Lovran) only around 1911

Hotel Imperial was the second hotel to be built in Opatija. Thanks to its representational form and location, it was no wonder that this was the choice of guests such as James Joyce, Franz Josef I, or Josip Broz Tito who stayed here in 1946, to for the first time set foot on the Istrian soil that had been returned to its mother country.