After the long week in Pula, it was time for an intermediary stop: Rijeka.
I chose this city because it looked like the perfect resting place between Pula and Zagreb. I wasn’t keen on facing 5 hours of bus across Croatia. Well, you might be right: Ljubljana could have also been a greater intermediate stop, but given the good season, I wanted to stay by the seaside another couple of days. Once back to Lisbon, the Atlantic would have been my swimming pool… So, I preferred to enjoy the Adriatic a little bit more, while I could.
I didn’t realise on the spot that Rijeka is what it used to be Fiume, the Dalmatian city object of dispute during WWI and WWII. And here, the historian in me went crazy!
Rijeka or Fiume (which stands for “River” in Croatian and Italia respectively) has always been the symbol of the multiculturalism present in Dalmatia.
It was basically born as a Venetian post, where Latins, Slavs, Byzantines and other sailing people used to co-exist for centuries.
With time though, the rising Italian culture took over, making Fiume an Italian exclave on the Dalmatian coast. The Italian nationalism reached an all-time-high during the Austria-Hungary domination, when Vienna and Budapest tried to extinguish the rising sentiment by banning Italian and favouring Croatian as official language in the area. At the dawn of the 20th century, these measures provoked a striking reaction by various Italian nationalist groups, on top of all the so-called “Irredentist movement”, led by an improbable character: Gabriele d’Annunzio.
If you’re familiar with Italian literature, you might know that D’Annunzio was revered among the greatest authors of the 19th century, at the same level of James Joyce, Victor Hugo or Lord Byron. At home he was regarded as the man who brought Italian literature back to new highs, centuries after Dante and Boccaccio.
With the rising of modern press, D’Annunzio used to get the spotlight on gossip tabloids around whole Europe. He was known as an avid lover, who didn’t waste any chance to know a woman closer.
More than a century later, Gabriele D’Annunzio is a pivotal character in a great historical novel, “M — The Son of the Century” by Andrea Sturati. It is a novelisation of Benito Mussolini rise to power and describes with merciless precision the events that turned Italy into the first totalitarian regime in history. It was a slow process, that started from crazy actions by the early 1900s nationalists, who believed that whoever speaks a determined language should belong to one country (does it sound familiar?).
In this hyped climate, what could an old poet, at the sunset of his career and life, do to leave a mark? He gathered a group of Irredentists, jumped on his red Alfa Romeo spider, and drove to Fiume. The improvised militia was welcomed with incredible jubilee by the Italian population of the city. The enthusiasm was so great that the international troops, called to administer the disputed territory, could do nothing but leave the city without shooting a bullet.
As Wikipedia correctly reports:
The main problem arose from the fact that Rijeka was not assigned either to Italy or to Croatia (now Yugoslavia) in the Treaty of London which defined the post-war borders in the area. It remained assigned to Austria-Hungary because — until the very end of WWI — it was assumed that the Austro-Hungarian empire would survive WWI in some form and Rijeka was to become its only seaport (Trieste was to be annexed by Italy). However, once the empire disintegrated, the status of the city became disputed. Italy based its claim on the fact that Italians comprised the largest single nationality within the city (46.9% of the total population). Croats made up most of the remainder and were a majority in the surrounding area.
Because of this mess, D’Annunzio couldn’t annex Fiume to Italy and instead, a free state named “Regency of Carnaro” was created, after months in which the local population almost starved to death. D’Annunzio was a great author, but a horrible manager, incapable of supplying his people with the basic needs. Soon the local Italians understood that there was no reason to turn their Slav bothers into enemies, and that joining the young Kingdom of Italy was an utter non-sense.
However, D’Annunzio was just proto-fascism. Real fascism will never give up on Rijeka and eventually, it will succeed in annexing the Free State of Fiume into its tentacles by 1924.
In all honesty, I reached Rijeka with a slight cold. When I arrived at my Airbnb, I got a boiling shower, to charge myself. It was Saturday and I was eager to try Rijeka’s nightlife. My friend Nela told me Rijeka has a vibrant nightlife, so I couldn’t miss it. My goal was to hit the The River Pub. I read great reviews about it.
However, once out of the shower, I heard the wind whistling with a threatening melody outside. I tried to find additional motivation, but the de-motivations were stronger: “The bora wind is rising, it’s already 10 pm, the bus will take 40 minutes to get in the centre… Let’s sleep…”
And so I missed Rijeka’s nightlife…
How’s Rijeka during the day? I found it sunny and cute. It’s not a place I’d live in, but I could appreciate it. Rijeka has a nice city centre, with a beautiful Avenue full of shops and bars. If you’re into shopping, you will find many shoes, for great prices.
When you arrive in Rijeka via bus, you will immediately stumble across its elegant church, Capuchin Church of Our Lady of Lourdes. Indeed, a horde of Capuchin monks appeared at the entrance as soon as I was roaming around. It was a squad coming directly from Italy, but I think I heard also some Spanish among them. These church people have been doing stuff like Meetup and Couchsurfing centuries before we commons did!
I even found a couple of curious facts about this city.
The first curiosity is that Fiorello La Guardia lived and worked here between 1905 and 1906. The former New York mayor was sent to Rijeka by the USA as a diplomat and today the building which hosted him bears a commemorative plaque.
Another curiosity regards a legendary car that was assembled here, by two brilliant brothers running a garage.
These brothers were Gino and Oscar Jankovits, sons of an Alfa Romeo dealer. They got in touch with Alfa Romeo’s designer Vittorio Jano, one of the most brilliant minds in the car industry during the 1930s.
To bring the project to fruition, a dedicated mid-engine chassis was prepared by Jano in Milan and then transported to Fiume. Renowned aerodynamics expert Paul Jaray played a pivotal role in crafting the sleek pontoon body with its aerodynamic design. The prototype reached completion in 1937, coinciding with Jano’s recent dismissal by Alfa Romeo. The automaker soon forgot about the project, and so the 6C 2300 Aerodinamica Spider found its home with the Jankovits brothers and saw limited action in minor races held in Brno, Budapest, and northern Italy.
The Jankovits brothers christened their creation as the “Croatian Alfa,” adorning it with the original Fiume license plates as a silent testimony to its origin.
The 6C 2300 almost risked destruction when the Jankovits brothers drove across the border in 1946, to escape from the newly established Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. As they had left everything behind to start a new life in Italy, the Jankovits had to sold their prototype to an Anglo-American soldier, marking a pivotal chapter in the car’s mysterious journey.
Lost to history until its rediscovery in England in 1967, this Alfa Romeo embarked on a return to its Italian roots in 2002. A meticulous restoration in 2008 rekindled its essence as a high-speed racer, echoing the audacity and innovation of a bygone era.
