2 stops in walking order

Museum

The neoclassical villa where Croatian tourism was born in 1844, when a Rijeka merchant built it as an aristocratic seaside retreat. The garden is planted with camellias, magnolias and sequoias from four continents.

~1 h at this stop

City

Opatija was invented as a resort in the 1840s and became Vienna's winter beach — palm-lined promenades, pastel villas, the Grand Hotel Kvarner (1884) where Chekhov and Isadora Duncan stayed, and the 12-kilometre Lungomare seaside path that hugs the coast from Volosko to Lovran. Stop for a slice of Sissi cake — a tribute to Empress Elisabeth, who wintered here — and take the picture of the Maiden with the Seagull, Opatija's bronze icon.

~20 min at this stop