VILA ANGIOLINA - MUSEUM OF TOURISM

If you're feeling nostalgic for the heyday of elegant tourism, you've got to visit Villa Angiolina! It was built between 1845 and 1860, in the eclectic style typical of ^19th-century architecture. It's the oldest summer residence in the resort that's open to the public. Given to his wife by the wealthy Rijeka industrialist Igino Scarpa, this aristocratic residence inaugurated the fashion for Austrian seaside resorts in its day. Inside, some of the rooms, decorated with frescoes and trompe-l'oeil, have been refurbished to house a fine collection of paintings, photos, postcards, lithographed posters and hotel equipment from the late ^19th century. Temporary exhibitions (often renewed and very interesting) are often based on the theme of worldly tourism, for example Opatija in the Belle époque, gastronomy, the Lungomare, marine paintings...

Outside, the French-style flowerbeds all around the villa and the paths of the botanical park near St. Jakov's church were designed by the first owner himself. The nature lover acclimatized many plants from the Americas and Australia here. There are 159 species, including some very exotic ones such as ginkgo, sequoia and Japanese camellia. So you spend almost as much time inside the villa as outside, enjoying this oasis of greenery.