Rijeka. Things to do, map and hidden gems

Trsat castle stands on a rock a hundred and thirty metres above the canyon of the Rjecina, on a site fortified since antiquity, when a Liburnian hillfort stood here and later a Roman watchpost over the road toward Pannonia. The medieval castle was built by the Frankopan counts in the 13th century, and after it fell empty it was bought in 1826 by the Austrian general Laval Nugent, who restored it in the romantic manner and raised in the courtyard a family mausoleum shaped as a Greek temple with Doric columns. Today concerts and exhibitions are held in the castle, and from the ramparts the whole Kvarner gulf and the island of Krk are visible. The ticket is cheap, the visit takes half an hour.

The torpedo launch station is what remains of the Rijeka factory where the first torpedo in the world was invented and made. The idea of a self-propelled underwater device was put forward in the 1860s by Giovanni Luppis, a retired officer from Rijeka, and the technical solution was worked out by the English engineer Robert Whitehead, who ran the Rijeka machine works; the first working torpedo was presented in 1866 and almost every naval power soon bought it. The ramp by the sea served for testing: the torpedo was fired into the channel and its run followed. The concrete structure on the shore is today protected as a monument of technology and is the last of its kind preserved in the world. It is seen from the coastal road.

Grobnik castle stands on a rocky hill above the Grobnik field, fifteen kilometres north-east of Rijeka, and was one of the strongholds of the Frankopan counts who from the 13th century held Vinodol and the hinterland. The site was chosen for control of the road from the interior to the sea, since goods bound for the port of Rijeka passed this way. To the castle is tied the tradition of a great battle on the Grobnik field in 1242, in which, according to legend, the Tatar forces were halted; that story has been part of the folk tradition of this region for centuries. Today the walls, a tower and the inner courtyard, used for events, are preserved. A road from Cavle leads to the castle.

The Drenova Local History Museum is set up in the Rijeka neighbourhood of Drenova, on the plateau above the town, and is devoted to the life of this district before it became part of Rijeka. Drenova was for centuries a village that supplied the town with vegetables, wood and lime, and its people worked in the quarries and lime kilns; those very themes form the core of the display, alongside farming tools, household objects, dress and family photographs. Documents about the school and the reading room, which the villagers founded themselves at the end of the 19th century, are also shown. The museum is run by a local society, the space is small, the visit takes some twenty minutes, and the opening hours are limited, so a visit is arranged in advance.

The Turkish House is an old stone building on the shore in Kostrena, east of Rijeka, one in a line of houses raised by the seafaring families of this district. From the 18th century Kostrena produced captains and sailors who sailed tall ships across the Mediterranean and the oceans, and money earned at sea went into houses along the shore: hence their size, the stone terraces, the shutters and gardens with palms, unusual for ordinary fishing villages. The names of individual houses were passed on by word of mouth and are tied to stories of voyages and of owners. The building is seen from the shore promenade that links the coves of Kostrena; the interior is not open to visitors.

The Roman House stands a few steps from the Turkish House, on the same stretch of the Kostrena shore, and belongs to the same line of old stone buildings raised when this district lived from tall ships. The houses were built to a similar pattern: a ground floor of large dressed blocks with a covered passage toward the sea, an upper floor with the family's flat and an outside stair along the front. In the ground floors tools, nets and goods were kept, since the sea was both road and storehouse. Some of these houses have been restored today and some stand empty, showing how people built before the steamship. A shore path linking Zurkovo with the other coves of Kostrena leads to them.

The ship Galeb was built in Genoa in 1938 as a cargo vessel for carrying bananas, and in the war it was converted into a minelayer and sunk near Rijeka. After being raised and refitted it became in 1952 the state ship of the Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, who sailed on it to India, Egypt and Great Britain and received heads of state aboard; the ship was a moving residence and a place of negotiation in the era of non-alignment. After decades of decay in Rijeka harbour the town restored it and arranged it as a museum ship: the salon, cabins, galley and engine room are visited, along with a display on the ship's history and that period. It is moored on the shore in the centre; the visit takes an hour.

Risnjak National Park was proclaimed in 1953 and takes in about sixty square kilometres of the mountain massif north of Rijeka, with its highest peak, Veliki Risnjak, at one thousand five hundred and twenty-eight metres. The name comes from the lynx, the large cat that lives here alongside the wolf and the bear. The park lies on the boundary of the coastal and the continental climate, so within a short distance beech and fir forests, mountain meadows and bare karst follow one another, and a particular sight is the source of the Kupa, which rises from a deep green pool. Through the park runs the Leska interpretive trail, four and a half kilometres long and walkable by all. From Rijeka the drive takes an hour.

Peek&Poke is a private computer museum in the centre of Rijeka, opened in 2007 from a collection that a group of enthusiasts had gathered over years. The display shows the development of personal computers from the 1970s to the turn of the century: home machines of the kind bought in this part of Europe in Trieste and across the border, the first consoles, floppy drives, dot-matrix printers and dial telephones. The name comes from two commands of the BASIC language with which one read and wrote directly into memory. Most of the devices work and visitors may switch them on and play the old games. The museum is small, the visit takes some forty minutes, and it means most to those who owned these machines.

Molo longo is a breakwater about a kilometre and seven hundred metres long that closes the harbour of Rijeka on the seaward side. It was built at the end of the 19th century, when Rijeka was raising a modern port for steamer traffic and needed protection from the waves and the bora. Today it is the longest level promenade in the town and a favourite place for running and the evening walk, because from it the whole town is seen, from Kantrida to Trsat, and on the other side the Kvarner with its islands. Ships in transit are moored along the mole, and at its end is the light marking the entrance. The walk to the end and back takes an hour; there is no shade, and in a bora it is exposed to the wind.

Kantrida is the western part of Rijeka, known for the stadium that lies between the sea and the vertical face of a former quarry, in a setting with no comparison in European football: from one side of the stands one looks out on the Kvarner, and on the other rises a white stone cliff. The quarry gave stone for centuries for the buildings of Rijeka and for the breakwater, and when it was worked out, a pitch was laid in the hollow that remained. Beside the stadium is the town's bathing complex with pools and concrete beaches where the western part of the town gathers. In recent years a new stadium has been under construction on the same spot. A town bus runs to Kantrida from the Korzo, the ride taking some fifteen minutes.

The Trsat stairs join the shore with Trsat and have five hundred and sixty-one steps that climb a hundred and thirty metres up the slope of the Rjecina canyon. Petar Kruzic began building them in 1531, the captain of Klis who defended that fortress for years against the Ottoman army, and he had the way built so that pilgrims could reach the sanctuary of Our Lady of Trsat in safety; the stairs carry his name. Along the flight stands a line of chapels with scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the lower end is closed by a baroque portal of 1531. The climb takes some twenty minutes and is steep, but the steps are wide and in the shade of trees; many pilgrims still go up on foot.

Tower Center Rijeka is a shopping centre at the eastern entrance to the town, in the Pecine district, recognised by the tall office tower visible from most of the bay of Rijeka and among the tallest structures on this part of the coast. Under one roof are a hypermarket, shops for clothing, footwear and electronics, restaurants and a cinema, while the tower holds offices. For visitors it is the quickest way to get everything needed in a single trip, since small shops and eating places prevail in the old core. The car park is covered and free, opening hours run until late in the evening, and a town bus goes there from the Korzo.

The shops on the Korzo occupy the ground floors of buildings of the 19th and early 20th centuries, in spaces that were built as shops, with tall windows and stone frames. Along the stretch from Adriatic Square to the City Tower follow clothing, footwear, bookshops, opticians, jewellers and pastry shops, and between them cafes whose terraces in summer take up the middle of the street. The Korzo is pedestrian, so browsing is unhurried, and the windows look best toward evening, when the lights come on and the town comes out for its walk. Opening hours mostly run until eight in the evening, while the cafes work longer. On Sundays some shops are closed, but the cafes are open.