Kostrena’s archaeological heritage

Prehistoric Solin and Sopalj castles

On the highest hills, over the Municipality of the Kostrena settlement, we can find the prehistoric Solin and Sopalj castles. Solin hill with remains of the archaeological site is located on the north-western edge of Kostrena, above the deep Martinšćica Bay and Sušačka draga valley. A great position from which a panoramic view opens up to the eastern parts of the city of Rijeka was occupied even at the end of the Neolithic Age, whilst the colony lasted during the Chalcolithic (during the fourth and third millennium BC). From the accessible part of the hill, the site was protected during the half of second millennium BC by semicircular wall...

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the local Roman inhabitants became jeopardized precisely because of the accessibility of the approach by sea and from the Roman roads. That is why, at the end of the 4th century AC, during the period of the attack of the Visigoths, the Kostrena inhabitants of that period built a new castle on the site of the ruined remains of the prehistoric castle up on the Solin hill. According to present knowledge, the shelter at the Solin was attacked, conquered and burnt around the year 600 by the first wave of the Avaric and Slavic conquerors of our coastal area. The Slavic colonists ruled Solin for some time, probably until the year 800 when the Avaric and Slavic troupes were destroyed by an attack by the French army and the Croats came to the area, from the north-western hinterland, inhabiting these areas permanently.

Sopalj hill

On the eastern edge of the Municipality of Kostrena, on the dominant stony, Sopalj hill from where a panoramic view extends over the Bakar Bay and Kvarner islands is the large prehistoric settlement, the Sopalj castle, a spacious area surrounded by two layers of walls. Sopalj was founded during the Bronze Age, in the second millennium BC, and as a surveillance and guarding station had the function of supervising access to the Bakar Bay almost until the present day. On the lower parts of Kostrena there are another two smaller surveillance points – Kula and Glavica. On Glavica we can find the squares of a smaller prehistoric colony. During t...