Governor's Palace
Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral

Leaving Dolac Street at the opposite end and taking the stairs adjacent to the newly reconstructed hotel of old tradition, the Bonavia Hotel, you ascend towards the former Governor's Palace. Lined to your right lie the houses built on the west ramparts of the antique and medieval city. The Palace, residence and office of the governor of the Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen in Rijeka, in the style of high historicism, is the work of A. Haussmann, a native of Budapest. Everything here is a function of the pomposity of the gubernatorial protocol: the exterior with its monumental stone forepart (in contrast with the humbler sides) and the interior - the atrium, the salons and the Marble Hall. As a symbolic or actual seat of state administration, the Palace had an exciting past. In World War I it was the stage of the conflict between the Italian annexationists (the arditi) led by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio and the supporters of the option of Rijeka's independence and its annexation to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Today the building houses the Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, whose maritime, cultural-historical, archaeological and ethnological departments keep numerous records of primarily local significance, partly presented in a permanent display and separate catalogues. A part of the current hanging is ambient in character and displays the aspect the salon had during the Governor's residence in it. In the park around the palace two canons for launching torpedoes are found, reminding us that this weapon was invented (by the Croat Ivan Lupis), developed, first tested, and then for dozens of years produced in Rijeka.