A hilltop town on the
Gulf of Kvarner, now a suburb of the
Croatian city of
Rijeka. First inhabited by an ancient
Illyrian tribe, who named it
Tarsat, the settlement has grown around a fortress first erected in Roman times, taking advantage of Trsat's location commanding the Gulf.
Modern Trsat (that's '
Ter-sat', for the less
Slavonically inclined) is strikingly different to the
fishing villages and
resorts strung along the rest of the Gulf, and is lined with small cottages in typical
Habsburg pastel which almost suggest a seaside village in
Cornwall. (But not
Portmeirion, heavens no.) A recent addition to Trsat, the
Dom mladosti (or
Hall of Youth), is Rijeka's venue for major conferences, concerts and sporting events.
Aside from the castle, the
Church of Our Lady of Loreto is the village's centrepiece and the oldest devotional site in Croatia, ever since the
Virgin Mary's house, taking flight from a
Saracen attack in
1291, made a three-year
stopover atop Trsat hill
en route to its final resting place in
Loreto, Italy. (The
Wicked Witch of the East ought to have been more careful; the skies are clearly getting crowded.)
Pilgrims to the church traditionally climb to Trsat up a 538-step staircase built in
1531 by
Petar Kružić, the commander of the
Uskok corsairs then helping the
Austrians to fight the
Ottoman navy in the
Adriatic. If they're feeling particularly penitent, they can make the climb on their knees, but for the less religious, the #1 bus is an acceptable door-to-door alternative from the centre of Rijeka.
During the middle ages, Trsat belonged to the
Frankopan dukes, one of Croatia's great noble families until the last of the dynasty was executed for his part in the rebellion of
1671. The dukes dedicated another church to
St. George, and built a
Franciscan monastery next to Our Lady of Loreto, into which the monks moved in
1448.
Among the highlights of any visit to Trsat, the monastery contains a spectacular
votive chapel to which the faithful whose prayers have been answered by Our Lady bring hand-made gifts related to the nature of the prayer: normally paintings or tapestries, but pride of place in one corner of the chapel belongs to a six-foot candle emblazoned with the Croatian coat of arms, the
šahovnica,
Entirely covering the chapel walls, the gifts depict an array of Rijekans raising themselves from their
sickbed or falling off ladders into the miraculous arms of the Virgin Mary. In keeping with the
maritime heritage of the Croatian coast, drawings of the ships aboard which loved ones were saved from storms also abound. The monks seem to reserve
eye level for the more recent offerings, but sharp eyes will still pick out the occasional gift dating back to the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and even
Austria-Hungary.
Trsat Castle, often simply called
Gradina, was largely destroyed in the earthquake of
1750 but lovingly restored by an Irish-born Austrian general,
Laval Nugent, whose passion for archaeology convinced
Francis I to let him take it off his hands. The dashing Nugent repaired the central part of the castle and added a
neoclassical folly,
Mir Junaka (
The Peace of the Hero), which now contains a small museum dedicated to the general. By the looks of his portrait, he was a
dead ringer for
Simon Callow.
Gradina stayed in the Nugent family until
1922, when Nugent's great-granddaughter
Ana was unable to pay her debts and sold the fortress off to the Italians who had occupied Rijeka after
World War I. Once Rijeka returned to Yugoslavia, the castle was opened to the public, and today is the venue for a number of cultural events during the summer.