Vladimir Nazor Park
At the end of the 19th century, the brother of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor and King Francis Joseph, Archduke Joseph, buys a villa from mayor Ciotta, coming with a park, near the Governor's Palace and near Lešnjak (Hazel) water well. In those times, there was a great interest in growing exotic plants in all parts of Europe. In Rijeka, great merits for acclimatization of exotic plants were attained by Archduke Joseph himself, a passionate botanist, who could use our maritime connections with the southern seas for the shipment of various specimens of plants. So, he decorated a beautiful botanical garden around his villa on a wide area from the Ulica Žrtava fašizma (Victims of Fascism Street) to under Belvedere. At the bottom of his estates, the Archduke built a separate building for the pump, which used Lešnjak (Hazel) well for supplying the water into the park maintenance facilities.
