National park Brijuni Croatia
The National Park Brijuni situated on 14 islands west of the city Fažana in Istria, was not always a national park! For centuries the island was used as a stone supply chamber by the different rulers, like the Roman Empire, Venice, Austria and France, in 1815 the Austrians build a fortress and started to use the islands for military purposes.
The change for Brijuni came in 1893 when the islands was bought by the rich Venetian businessman Poul Kupelwieser, who within two decades, turned the islands into a top resort for the European upper-class, on the island he build first class hotels, beach resorts, a casino and even an 18 hole golf course.
From 1930 the Brijuni islands was owned by the Italian state, but after WWII the islands became part of Yugoslavia and was turned into to summer residence for Tito, actually he did not only used It for summer residence but spend up to 6 month a year on the island, where he received a larger number of state heads and movie start as guest.
Tito liked animals so many of the guests brought exotic animals like elephants, tigers and lions as presents, the animals was kept in a safari park on the island, some of the animals and part of the safari park can still be found on the island.
If you are making holiday in Istria, you should for sure considering paying a visit to National Park Brijuni, you can read more here about visiting National park Brijuni.
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