Rijeka is a port city that does not try to be pretty, and that is its charm. It lies at the head of the Kvarner Gulf, where the mountains come down steeply to a deep harbour, and it has been a trading city since Roman times. Under the Habsburgs it was Fiume, Hungary's sea gate, and between the wars it was Italian, briefly the plaything of the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who occupied it in 1919 and ruled it as a self-styled commandant for fifteen months. Today it is Croatian, and it is the third largest city in the country.
The city is built on industry, and its past includes a torpedo factory that produced the first self-propelled torpedoes in the 1860s, based on a design by a local Austrian naval officer and an English engineer. The buildings along the Korzo, the main pedestrian street, have a faded Habsburg grandeur, and the port still dominates the waterfront, with cranes and cargo ships. Rijeka was European Capital of Culture in 2020, and its old industrial buildings have been turned into galleries and venues. Every winter it hosts one of the biggest carnivals in Croatia, with costumed parades and a good deal of noise.
Above the city, the hilltop of Trsat has a castle and a pilgrimage church, reached by a long staircase of more than five hundred steps from the town. The view over the harbour, the gulf and the islands is worth the climb, and the church has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries.
For riders, Rijeka is the start or end of the Adriatic Highway, the Magistrala, which runs south along the coast through Bakar, Kraljevica and Senj. The first stretch is a beautiful run with hairpins above the sea, but be aware of the bora, a violent cold wind that blows down from the mountains, and which can close the coastal roads and the Krk bridge to bikes. Check forecasts. Summer brings heavy traffic and heat.
Rijeka has more than a hundred and forty thousand people, so fuel and food are easy. Eat fish near the market, and book ahead in summer if you want a room.