Historical background to Lovran
Lovran was renowned for its maritime past, possessed of a picturesque medieval centre, until the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lovran turned into a fashionable waering place and winter resort for the Austro-Hungarian gentry.
The Romans decked their triumphant heroes and gods with laurel, and according to one legend, Lovran was created when the Roman patrician and statesman Marcus Agripa, in the 1th century AD, built his summer residence, Tusculum, on the site of today's Lovran town.
In the next 20 centuries, many people from all over the world came and came back again to Lovran, enthralled by the marvellous and quite unparalleled combination of sea and mountain, cityscape and landscape, past and present.
In the Middle Ages, Lovran was a typical Mediterreanean town, a town with narrow, paved streets, three storey houses packed close together, with steps, chimneys and the little windows characteristic of the coast.
It was girded with a defensive wall. The town was entered through three gates that were shut at night. St George's Square (Trg St. Jurja), who was the patron saint of the town, was the main square in the city and the centre of public life.