The Imperial Park

The Imperial garden is positioned in the centre of Opatija, on the north-west of the eponymous hotel along which it is situated. Between the hotel and the garden and the building of the former closed bathing resort, today there is a parking lot. The garden is within the borders of the protected cultural – historical entirety of Opatija. It is surrounded by buildings, but due to the automobile traffic along the side streets, there is no established correlation with any of the buildings.

A pedestrian pathway meanders through the garden, from the town's centre to its higher parts. The terrain on which it has been designed is slanted and accordingly overcome by sequences composed of several steps. It is of irregular shape and covers surface of 3,329m2. It was founded as a public garden in the 2nd half of the 20th century, somewhere before 1975. It consists of two parts divided by the Street of fallen Croatian veterans.

The inventory list of the company Parkovi d.o.o. from 2006 identifies 16 plant species, out of which the following could be highlighted: Magnolia soulangeana (saucer magnolia), Paulownia tomentosa (princess tree), Phylllostachys sp (Asian bamboo), Quercus ilex (holm oak) and Quercus pubescens (Downy oak).

The part on the west from the hotel is a grove dominated by a plantation of old Downy oak trees and laurel bushes. Special trait of the northern surface is a dense plantation of tall holm oak trees, and there are also three tall Chinese windmill palms and one old Downy oak. The park has no accents, except for the impressive vegetation. It makes it a peaceful, introverted and relatively isolated green town oasis where the visitors stay shorty or they seek respite from the city hustle. Throughout the year, the park assumes its basic tone from various nuances of green. In the autumn, the colour palette is enriched with yellow-brownish leaves on the oak branches and the ground, and on windy days, the atmosphere is completed by the murmur of the tree tops.

The garden was designed in the second half of the 20th century which significantly emphasizes the function and the size of the park, while the artistic impression is supressed as a background note.