Church of St Andrew (Crkva sv. Andrije)

The small church of St Andrew (Crkva sv. Andrije) stands right on the shore at Cape St Andrew, beside the seafront promenade of Rabac, above the bay and the beach that share its name. It dates from the 15th century and is the oldest surviving building in Rabac, older by several centuries than the resort that has grown up around it.

For most of its history Rabac was little more than a cove used by fishermen and boats from Labin, the hill town above it. In the mid-19th century there were still only a few houses here. The sheltered bay soon attracted day-trippers; the English writer and explorer Richard Francis Burton visited in 1876, wealthy families built summer villas, and the first hotel, the Quarnero, opened in 1889. From the early 1960s tourism grew quickly and Rabac earned the nickname "the pearl of the Kvarner". Through all of this, the chapel on the cape survived as a reminder of the older seafaring village.

It is a simple building: a single nave on a rectangular plan with a flat apse, entered through a pointed-arch doorway, with a small bell gable above the façade. Two ancient stone fragments with inscriptions are built into the north wall and the front, reused from earlier buildings. Inside, the ceiling is flat and plastered. The church was renovated in 1984.

St Andrew is a natural stop on a walk along the Rabac promenade, and its setting among cypresses and pines on the cape is a quiet contrast to the hotels and beaches nearby. It is a church, so it is usually seen from outside unless it is opened for a service. Nearby are modern sculptures by Croatian artists along the shore, and between Rabac and Labin the ruins of the Romanesque church of St Hadrian can be reached on the old footpath up to the town.