ADVERTISING INFORMATION

Opatija - History

Opatija, Italian Abbazia is a resort town and one of the best-known coastal resorts in Istria, republic of Croatia, situated on the Kvarner (gulf) of the Adriatic Sea. The town's name derives from the old Benedictine opatija (“abbey”) of San Giacomo al Palo, situated in the main park. The city was built around this Benedictine abbey, mentioned for the first time in the 12^th century. Opatija started to write its tourist story in 1844 with the construction of the first summerhouse - villa Angiolina, surrounded by the exotic park. Austrian and Hungarian nobility built several other striking villas in the 19^th century. Opatija became a resort, where the royal families and man of distinction (Wilhelm II, Franz Joseph I, Gustav Mahler, Isadora Duncan etc.) used to winter. 

By the end of the 19^th century, the town was the winter and the climatic health resort of the worldly Central Europe with hotels and boarding houses, offering the services of dozens of physicians in sanatoriums in stylish villas. The Opatija Riviera developed as a tourist and vacation centre stimulated by the Trieste-Rijeka railway in 1873. The railway communication with Vienna, Zagreb and Budapest in particular enabled its rapid development. Austrian before World War I, Opatija was ceded to Italy in 1919 and returned to Yugoslavia after World War II.

Sheltered from cold winds, immersed in the rich, always green vegetation, Opatija enjoys all the benefits of its mild Mediterranean climate, which makes the resort still to a great tourist attraction.

© Copyright 2000 - 2004  Eurotravelling.net  POWERED BY wORLDTRAVELGATE.NET