Rijeka's most important historical set-piece is located inside the splendid Governor’s Palace, which is in itself reason to go. Things kick off in the entrance hall with models of the ships which once plied the waters of the Kvarner Gulf. A glass cabinet displays an original lifejacket from the Titanic – one of only a handful in existence. The lifejacket was donated to the museum by local seafarer Josip Car, who served on the Carpathia, one of the ships that was sent to the scene of the Titanic tragedy to pick up survivors. Upstairs, a stunning sequence of period apartments display furnishings, paintings and sculpture colleced by generations of rich merchants and state bureaucrats. Don’t miss the ethnographic collection on the ground floor, where traditional costumes, domestic utensils and agricultural implements provide an evocative sense of how Kvarner folk lived a century or so ago.