Postojna Caves

When I booked our flights to Slovenia I googled ‘things to do’ before booking our accommodation. The top tourist attractions seemed to be the caves and castle at Postojna and the caves at Skocjan. I therefore booked us a property south of Ljubljana for a few nights and also booked cave tours to the attractions.

Postojna Cave is over 24km and is the second largest cave system in Slovenia. It was created by the Pivka River. Our tour of Postojna was on Tuesday morning (first slot of the day) so we had to leave quite early as the house was an hour away. We had been told to dress warm as it was 10 degrees inside the caves (despite it being 30 degrees outside). We were offered coats on arrival but decided we’d be fine as we had hoodies on and no-one else seemed to be taking up the offer of the jackets.

The first part of the tour was a train ride which took us 3.5 km into the cave system.

^{Waiting for the train to depart!}

After the train ride we had a 1.5km guided walk through some of the caves. It was really impressive – some of the caves were huge and there were so many stalagmites and stalactites. I hadn’t realised it took years for them to grow a millimeter! Tom and Izzy deserted us on the tour and walked up front near the guide whilst Stu and I stayed back taking lots of photos.

^{Stalagmites and stalactites in the caves}

We then got back on the train to leave the caves. Before heading to the castle we decided to visit the vivarium which had loads of information about the animals you find in caves. One of the animals they were really proud of was the olm – we had never heard of them – but they are little white animals which look like baby dragons and are adapted to live in the dark caves. They had one in a tank that we could look at.

Predjama Castle

Predjama Castle is the worlds largest cave castle. It was only 15 minutes up the road from the caves and the tickets were included with our cave entry.

^{Predjama Castle – built into the rock on a hill}

We picked up audio guides on the way in and Izzy decided she was going to listen to every bit of information so we had to wait for her in every room to finish! There was a room with a bell which Tom and Izzy spent ages ringing very loudly. At the top of the castle it opened up into a cave in the mountain which was quite cool. We really enjoyed exploring Predjama and bought an ice cream as we left before heading home.

^{Exploring the castle}

Skocjan Caves

Skocjan Caves are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has a river canyon running through it. Again, I had booked us onto the first tour of the day so we had to leave early to arrive at Skocjan on time. When we arrived we had a short walk to the cave entrance and then we were split into groups depending on our language so we were in the English speaking group.

As we entered the cave we were told we were not allowed to take any photos which was such a shame. The first part of the cave was full of stalagmites and stalactites – very similar to Postojna. However, at the end we entered a massive cavern which we walked through with a river running through it. It was really impressive.

Once we got outside there was a choice of 3 walks (short, medium or long) which went through various other caves so we opted for the long walk (about 1-2 hours) and we were allowed to take photos.

^{Start of the long cave walk – it was really hot!}

The walk took us through various caves and along bridges where we could see some brilliant rock formations etc. Also as we chose the longer walk there weren’t too many people so at times we had the path to ourselves.

^{Exploring the caves.}

The last cave we walked through was my favourite as it was really dark and there was a really still lake inside it so we could take some really good photos.

^{Entering the last cave – Izzy is on the path at the left.}

^{Walking through the cave – you can see the reflections of the rocks in the water}

^{Tom and Izzy are on the platform at the top of the cave}

When we got back to the car Stu and I wanted to go for a walk along the top of the caverns but Tom and Izzy didn’t want to so we left them playing in the park whilst we went for a stroll. We then headed home for the evening as we had to vacate our house and travel to Lake Bled the following morning. We really enjoyed all the caves in Slovenia.