KVARNER Cache 91 is located at Promenade of Carmen Sylva. But who is she? :)
The Romanian king Carol, a guest at the Villa Amalia, once got lost during his daily horse ride in the woods somewhere beneath Veprinac (probably in 1896, on his first stay in Opatija). That made him quite furious, so next morning he went straight to the district principal, Baron Arthur von Schmidt-Zabiérow, and asked why the paths were not better maintained and marked. When the cunning Zabiérow confidentially explained that there just wasn’t the money, Carol gallantly produced a rather large amount necessary to deal with the matter. The money was well spent, and the construction of the forest path was completed in 1901.
Schmidt-Zabiérow, a passionate snipe, griffon vulture and dolphin hunter, used to live in a property next to the present town hall, designed for him by Karl Seidl (Villa Schmidt-Zabierow or Brüll, at the address M. Tita 1). He was buried in a family tomb in the cemetery in Volosko, together with his father, head of the province of Carinthia.
Karl Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1839-1914) was elected prince of Romania in 1866, and proclaimed king in 1881, when he took the name of Carol I. He first came to Opatija in April 1896 and stayed in the Villa Angiolina together with his wife Elisabeth (1843-1916), a musician, painter and writer, also known by her literary name of Carmen Sylva. The Romanian royal couple continued to visit Opatija regularly until Carol’s death in 1914. Elisabeth, by birth princess zu Wied (and a friend of her namesake, Austrian empress Elisabeth), was to outlive her husband by only two years.
During the Austrian era, two footpaths in Opatija were named after the Romanian king – these were the forest path König-Carol-Waldweg and the König-Carol-Promenade. After World War Two, the forest path was renamed as Zora, after a local cultural society that has played a significant role in the social and cultural life of Opatija since 1889.
At the end of the 20th century, the forest path was given the name of Carmen Sylva, Romanian queen and wife of the forest path’s main sponsor.