Day 108 - Tites hold tight and mites might touch the ceiling

On the road again!  Packed and ready to go early in the morning, then caught a taxi to the train station in Ljubljana, so we could travel an hour to Postojna – a place famous for a castle and its caves. 

When we arrived at Postojna, we walked from the train station to our hotel to drop off the bags (the room wasn’t ready).  We knew the hotel was within walking distance of the caves, but needed a taxi to get out to the castle as there was no other transport option.  Hotel staff assisted us to access a taxi driver for the trip.

Predjama Castle is amazing to see as it is situated in the gaping mouth of a cavern halfway up a 123m cliff.  It is a 4 story castle, and dates back to the 16^th century.  It was fascinating to walk around as it has a tiny drawbridge, holes through which boiling oil could be poured on people below, a dungeon, incredible view of the land around, and a cave system behind the castle that extends for quite a distance in behind the cliff.

Castle in the cave

Oil painting of previous owner of the castle

View of the surrounds from the castle

After the castle exploration, we grabbed lunch.  Getting into the swing of lunch being the main meal of the day, we both had pasta (a lot of Italian influence in this area of Slovenia as we  close to Italy) with mutton and venison sauces.  It was incredibly tasty, and the beer went down a treat (very hot day so beer was perfect).

The taxi driver collected us from the castle then dropped us off at the entrance of Postojna Cave, where we got to see about 5.7km of the cave on a 1.5 hour tour.   We were warned to take with us warm clothes as it was about 10c in the cave and humidity is over 90%.  First we went on a train – tracks for which were laid in the late 1800s, to travel 2km into the cave system.  The ride is a slower version of something you would see in an Indiana Jones movie!  Flying past the stalactites and stalagmites, was incredible.  You could really notice the colour differences in certain sections (due to the colour of the soil above and minerals in the water), and the sizes were incredible (sections as thick as tree trucks and others that were as thin as spaghetti, hanging from the roof). 

After the train journey we broke up into languages for the guided tour that was informative.  Unfortunately a large number of people refused to follow the no photo rule – it must be incredibly frustrating for guides who deal with tourists, eg Japanese who join an English tour, but then plead ignorance when told they can’t take photos.  Some people are so rude!  Anyway, the cave system is absolutely huge and spectacular.  I have NEVER seen anything like it and was really blown away.  We finished the tour in the Concert Hall.  As its name suggests, it has brilliant acoustics and is big enough to hold 7,000 people.  An interesting note, the cave has been lit by electricity since 1884, when many European cities were still using gas!

We could take photos in the last cave!

From the caves, Al and I wandered back to the hotel.  It was an incredibly hot day so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel room watching Wimbledon and drinking Slovenian beer.  Very relaxing.

We had promised Warren we would try and find a place for taste the Slovenian specialty beef noodle soup (doesn't sound Slovenian but is on most of the menus).  Luckily the local restaurant had it so Al and I both had a bowl for entree then shared a pizza, and bottle of Slovenian red wine.  It is great travelling with someone - wine by the glass is sometimes limited and I wouldn't have dared order a bottle by myself previously.  The town of Postojna is geared towards tourists for the castle and caves - there really isn't much else to see.