The Imperial Riviera - Trieste, Croatia and the Istrian Peninsula

The Habsburg Empire vanished barely a hundred years ago but its legacy is still apparent in the seaport of Trieste, its hinterland and the adjoining coastline. The region was once a progressive and prosperous international melting pot, but in the 20th century it was riven by borders, often contested. The result was that the territory became peripheral and dropped from mainstream tourist itineraries – despite the hoard of extraordinarily handsome cities and settlements, sensationally interesting history and outstanding natural beauty.

This tour evokes the memory of a multi-national and multi-confessional empire. Under Vienna’s tutelage, Trieste became not only the third-largest city of the Austrian Empire but also one of the greatest ports of the world. Through it came most of central Europe’s coffee, fruit and colonial wares. A multinational plutocracy took advantage of light regulation and low taxation to establish fortunes in Trieste which have survived well into our times.

To the south-east of Trieste, the Adriatic coast was developed to accommodate the wishes of a newly prosperous imperial middle class who sought refuge from metropolitan life; the coastline rejoiced in the name Imperial and Royal Riviera. The thermal springs and bathing facilities of Opatija (Abbazia) along the Kvarner (Quarnero) peninsula were one such attraction. With its turn-of-the-century villas and hotels the town still exudes an atmosphere of Edwardian elegance.

Across the Quarnero bay lies the city of Rijeka (Fiume). While Trieste flourished on Austrian investment, Rijeka was developed by the Kingdom of Hungary, making it the Empire’s second port. Both cities had their heyday in the decades before 1914. Along with commerce, industry and shipbuilding, Rijeka gained magnificent streets and palaces, a theatre to rival those in Vienna or Budapest, and railways to the interior.

Away from these thriving cities, the old coastal settlements of western Istria appeared little changed by the Empire. Their Venetian tenements and bell towers, stone harbours and painted fishing boats dated from earlier times. Yet the modernising hand of Vienna was active here, too: building roads and hospitals, canneries and glassworks, barracks, schools and hotels. Linked to Italian culture over the sea and with the immense Slavonic world at their backs, these towns evolved a precarious frontier identity that survived – just barely – the wars and displacements which ended, perhaps, in living memory.