Opatija

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Opatija
coat of arms
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flag
Opatija (Croatia)
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Coordinates: 45 ° 20 ′ 5 ″  N , 14 ° 18 ′ 25 ″  E
Basic data
State : Croatian flag Croatia
County : Flag of Primorje-Gorski kotar County Primorje-Gorski kotar
Height : 0  m. i. J.
Residents : 11,659 (2011)
Telephone code : (+385) 051
Postal code : 51 410
License plate : RI
Boat registration : OP
Structure and administration
(status: 2013, cf. )
Community type : city
Mayor : Ivo Dujmić ( SDP )
Postal address : Maršala Tita 3
51 410 Opatija
Website :
Others
Patron saint : St. Jacob
City Festival : July 25th
Opatija.JPG
Opatija seaside

Opatija [ ɔˈpatiaː ] (Italian: Abbazia [aba'zia], German: Sankt Jakobi ) is a seaside resort on the Kvarner Bay or on the Istrian peninsula in northwestern Croatia . It was once a glamorous seaside resort and winter health resort of the Danube Monarchy .

geography

Opatija lies at the foot of the Učka massif and is about 18 km from Rijeka . The health resort is surrounded by lush subtropical vegetation.

Surname

In the German-speaking world, the German name Sankt Jakobi can be regarded as extinct. For a long time the Italian-language name Abbazia was used almost as often as the Croatian name Opatija . The reason may be that the place officially bore the Italian-speaking name Abbazia in the last decades of the Danube Monarchy . In the meantime, however, the current name Opatija has largely established itself in German texts. It is derived from the Croatian term for abbey .

history

Abbazia around 1902

Between 1422 and 1431 Benedictine monks from the Friulian Abbey of St. Peter in Rosazzo founded the small monastery Abbazia San Giacomo al palo ("Abbey of St. James on the Stick"), which soon suffered from the frequent incursions of the Turks and Venetians. In 1560 the Augustinians of Rijeka and in 1723 the Jesuits of the Fiuman seminary took over the abbey. After the Jesuit order was abolished in 1783, most of the monastery grounds were sold to private individuals. At the beginning of the 1840s, the timber and wheat merchant Iginio Scarpa (1794–1866) from Rijeka bought the land around the abbey building and built a summer residence next to a park, which he named after his wife Angiolina, who had died in 1832.

spa

The Austrian Southern Railway Company , whose branch line Pivka – Rijeka, opened in 1873, passed near Opatija, played a decisive role in the upswing of the health resort . Under its director Friedrich Julius Schüler , who also developed the Semmering near Vienna into an international health resort, in 1882 she purchased the Villa Angiolina, including the associated parks and other building sites. Construction planning began immediately, using the famous seaside resorts on the Côte d'Azur such as Monte Carlo , Menton , Nice or Cannes as models. Schüler, who had initially planned a pure hotel business, decided after discussions with the doctors Julius Glax , Max Joseph Oertel and Theodor Billroth , which took place in Opatija in October 1885, to create a health resort with corresponding cost-intensive medical facilities. In October 1887, Julius Glax became the "doctor in charge of the health resorts of the kk privileged Südbahn-Gesellschaft" and was to play a decisive role in Abbazia's rise to a world health resort for over 30 years.

Abbazia's rapid rise is due not least to the solidarity with which the imperial family supported the Southern Railway Company project. As the first member of the imperial family, Albrecht von Österreich-Teschen , victorious field marshal in the Battle of Custozza (1866) , visited the new Abbazia in autumn 1884. On March 27, 1885, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his wife Stephanie of Belgium came to see them a short visit to Opatija, during which the schoolchildren were given permission to name the second southern railway hotel, still under construction, Crown Princess Stephanie, which made Abbazia even more popular. The Mediterranean explorer Ludwig Salvator from Austria-Tuscany arrived on board his yacht Nixe in the early summer of 1885 at Quarnero and spent the summer there doing regional studies, which he published a year later in his work Lose Blätter aus Abazia .

By an imperial decree of March 4, 1889, Opatija was elevated to the status of the first climatic health resort on the Austrian Adriatic coast . The nobility , including many crowned heads from all over Europe and the upper classes, made it an internationally known seaside resort . On March 29, 1894, Emperor Franz Joseph I and the German Emperor Wilhelm II met in Opatija. Other noble spa guests were Empress Elisabeth of Austria , German Empress Auguste Viktoria , King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth of Romania , George I of Greece , Albert of Saxony , Wilhelm IV of Luxembourg , Nicholas of Montenegro and “a auspicious double star equal “(local press) the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince couple Rudolf and Stephanie .

In 1897 the water pipeline from the high springs of Monte Maggiore was put into operation, which eliminated the problem with the Klara springs south of Abbazia, which supplied brackish water under certain sea water levels. The construction of the sewerage network, which was planned in 1897, was completed in 1907. Until then, the spa guests had been transported by carriages from the Opatija- Matulji train station, five kilometers away, to Opatija, but from 1908 to 1933 an electric tram ran to Opatija and on to Lovran .

From 1908 the spa administration pushed the construction of simpler and cheaper domiciles to enable other social classes to stay. In contrast to the Austrian seaside resort Grado in the counties of Gorizia and Gradisca , women and men were allowed to enjoy the sea water together in the bathing establishments in Opatija. An extensive program of events with "rowing disciplines", fencing tournaments, "pistol shooting competitions", swimming competitions, sailing regattas, daily spa concerts and excursions with express steamers to the coastal cities and larger islands of the Austrian coastal region provided entertainment and entertainment for the spa guests.

After 1918

The end of Austria-Hungary , the handover to Italy after 1918 and to Yugoslavia after 1945 led to a decline and decline of the health resort, the quality of which was lost in tourism, especially in the Yugoslav era. There has been a clear upswing again since the mid-1990s. Above all, the demand for land among Austrian guests and celebrities is increasing continuously.

architecture

With its abundance of architecture in the style of historicism , Opatija is the most important example of a glamorous seaside resort on the Austrian Riviera with the architectural flair from the time of the Danube Monarchy . The architecture of many hotels, guesthouses and villas has features of various historical neo styles with isolated examples of Art Nouveau ; The structured facades, the size and openings (balconies, loggias) and the facade decoration give the buildings, which were often built by Carl Seidl , their Mediterranean appearance . The only larger, more modern building that contrasts with this is the Hotel Ambasador (architect Zdravko Bregovac ) from the 1960s .

The origins of tourism go back to 1844, when the wealthy merchant Iginio Scarpa from Rijeka built Villa Angiolina, named after his wife, who died young, as a summer resort. The nature lover created a large park with a multitude of exotic plants. Beginning in the 1880s, a number of grand hotels, guest houses, villas, summer houses, sanatoriums ("cur houses"), pavilions, bathing establishments, promenades and parks were built. The first hotel was Hotel Quarnero (today Hotel Kvarner ) in 1884 , immediately afterwards (1885) today's Hotel Imperial (Opatija) , then named after Crown Princess Stephanie .

  • Villa Angiolina

  • Hotel Kvarner, opened in 1884, is the oldest hotel in the Eastern Adriatic

  • Bronze bust of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov at the Hotel Kvarner

  • The Imperator Villa Amalia, built in 1890

  • View of Opatija

Culture and sights

Franz Joseph Promenade

Poster with Franz-Joseph-Promenade (1911)

The Franz-Joseph-Promenade (Serbo-Croatian: Obalno šetalište Franza Josefa I , also: Lungomare ) is a 12-kilometer promenade from Volosko (Volosca) via Opatija to Lovran (Lovrana). It was completed in 1911.

Parks and beaches

Thanks to the numerous elegant villas and hotels from the imperial era as well as the extensive parks located directly by the sea, Opatija and its surroundings are well visited for tourists in every season:

  • The Angiolina Park was created around the Villa Angiolina in the mid-19th century.
  • In the small, well-kept Sveti Jakob Park by the abbey church, there is the “Helios and Selena” fountain and the gold-plated copy of the “Madonna del Mare” (see sights).
  • The Park Margarita was created early 1890s and I. by Emperor Franz Joseph Franz-Josef plants called. Under Italian rule it was renamed Parco Regina Margherita , after the Second World War it was named after the fallen partisan Ivo Lola Ribar. The name, which has been in effect since 1996, is reminiscent of Margaret of Italy . The park can be used as a starting point for forest hikes at Šumski put to Veprinac or on the “promenade” Šumski šetalište Carmen Sylve named after Carmen Sylva .

In June 2007, some beaches in Opatija were awarded the Blue Flag , an environmental award for meeting strict criteria for water quality, safety standards, services and other environmental requirements. Specifically, these are the beaches:

  • Plaža Slatina: With almost 20,000 square meters, it is Opatija's largest beach, right in the city center.
  • Plaža Tomaševac: is located near the Hotel Ambasador and consists mainly of sand and stone plateaus.
  • Plaža Lido: is located near the Villa Angiolina park.

Slatina / Walk of Fame

Star in honor of Nikola Tesla on the Walk of Fame

The Croatian Walk of Fame is located in Opatija . It have u. a. the following Croatian celebrities a star on Slatina Street: Ivo Robić , Janica Kostelić , Dražen Petrović , Krešimir Ćosić , Oliver Dragojević , Miroslav Krleža , Dragutin Tadijanović , Miroslav Radman and Nikola Tesla .

Other sights

  • Villa Angiolina
  • The foundation stone of the Church of the Annunciation was laid in 1906 by the later Archbishop of Vienna, Franz Xaver Nagl . The 10 colored church windows come from the Tyrolean glass painting and mosaic institute .
  • The "Helios and Selena" fountain made of Carrara marble by Johann Rathausky was inaugurated on September 21, 1889 and soon became one of Abbazia's landmarks. The monumental fountain originally stood in the middle of St. Jakob Park between the seashore and the then largest Hotel Kronprinzessin Stephanie , but since the extension of the Hotel Milenij it has been standing rather inconspicuously on the edge of the park.
  • The gold-plated copy of the “Madonna del Mare” commemorates the boat accident on Good Friday, March 27, 1891, on which the 24-year-old Arthur Kesselstatt and the 40-year-old Anna Fries were killed. The original created by Johann Rathausky stood until 1951 in the place where the "Girl with the Seagull" is now. Then the Madonna, who had been badly affected by the sea, was brought to Villa Angiolina.

  • Jacob's Church from the 15th century

  • Park Sv. Jakov with a neo-baroque marble fountain from 1889

  • Christ Church Opatija from 1903/04

  • Djevojka s galebom (girl with seagull), symbol of Opatija

  • Statue of the writer Miroslav Krleža in the town center

Sports

To the east of the city was the Preluk motor racing circuit , which consisted of public roads and was used between 1939 and 1977. Among other things, the Grand Prix of Yugoslavia for the motorcycle world championship was held here from 1969 to 1977 .

Town twinning

Personalities

Sons and daughters:

  • Robert Gerle (1924–2005), American violinist and music teacher of Hungarian origin
  • Janez Lenassi (1927–2008), Slovenian sculptor
  • Leo Sternbach (1908–2005), American chemist, pharmacist and inventor of Valium, of Austro-Hungarian origin

People related to the city:

literature

In the order of the year of publication:

  • Amand von Schweiger-Lerchenfeld : Abbazia. Idyll of the Adriatic. Vienna 1883.
  • Ludwig Salvator: Loose leaves from Abazia . Hölzel, Vienna 1886 ( digital copy from HAAB Weimar ).
  • Josef Rabl , Anton Silberhuber: Winter health resort and seaside resort Abbazia. A guide to the coastal areas and the islands of the Quarnero. With a hygienic contribution from Julius Glaz. Publishing house of the Austrian Tourist Club, Vienna 1890.
  • Peter Rosegger : On the beach of Abbazia. In: Peter Rosegger: Walks in the home. Vienna / Pest / Leipzig 1894, pp. 417–432.
  • Carl Schubert: The Abbazia Park. Hartleben, Vienna 1894.
  • Flora Horn: Abbazia. Travel sketches. Dresden / Leipzig / Vienna 1897.
  • Amir Muzur: Opatija-Abbazia. Walk through space and time. Grafika Zambelli, Rijeka / Opatija 2000, ISBN 978-953-98100-3-8 .
  • Boris Zakosek: Beauty, Sorrow and Profits. In: Miljenko Majnaric (ed.): Opatija. Tetraksis, Zagreb 2005, ISBN 953-95048-0-5 .
  • Marion Kraske: Right around the corner. Austrians are rediscovering the old seaside resort of Opatija . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 2007, pp. 128 ( online - 9 July 2007 ).
  • Renate Basch-Ritter : In the emperor's time. In: Holleis Hotels (ed.): Opatija-Riviera. Salzburg 2008.
  • Johannes Sachslehner : Abbazia: Kuk Sehnsuchtsort on the Adriatic. Styria Verlag, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-7012-0062-7 , 204 pages.

Web links

Commons : Opatija  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Sachslehner 2011, p. 15.
  2. ↑ a b Sachslehner 2011, p. 40.
  3. ↑ a b c Sachslehner 2011, p. 24.
  4. ↑ a b c Sachslehner 2011, p. 60.
  5. ↑ Sachslehner 2011, p. 62.
  6. ↑ Sachslehner 2011, chapter Kaisertreffen am Quarnero. Pp. 102-115.
  7. ↑ a b Sachslehner 2011, p. 25.
  8. ↑ Sachslehner 2011, p. 52.
  9. ↑ Sachslehner 2011, p. 51.
  10. ↑ a b attractions on opatija.net, accessed on May 27, 2019 (German).
  11. ↑ Sachslehner 2011, chapter Tragedy on Good Friday. Pp. 94-99.