Story

For some time, I wanted to visit the Postojna caves in Slovenia. It is said to be one of the most beautiful showcaves in the world and it is certainly a top attraction in Slovenia. So I decided to spend a week in Ljubljana and organize some trips throughout the country. I even used one day to visit the famous Plitvice lakes NP in Croatia. Of coarse, I took the train to get there. I left Holland on june 17th by night train. After a five hour stopover in Munich, I arrived in Ljubljana on the evening of the 18th.

The next day, I visited the Postojna caves, which were easily reachable by train from Ljubljana. The tour through the caves takes about 1.5 - 2 hours. It started with a 10 minutes trainride to get 2 km deep into the mountain. The trainride itself was already very nice as the train passed numerous beautifully drip-stone-decorated chanbers and even a large hall illuminated with chandtleers. The cave tour itself had several highlights, amongst them, the Russian Bridge, the white gallery, red gallery and a large aquarium, hosting the rare cave olm, a small blind lizard-like creature. After a visit to the grand concert hall, the train brought us back to the entrance.. on the way back, I did a city walk through the beautiful city of Ljubljana. It does not have a capital city look; it looks a lot like the Austrian city of Salzburg. It has nice baroque buildings and a large cathedral. The castle on the hill, overlooks the city centre.

The next day, I got up early for a little trip into Croatia. I took the train to ZXagreb and from there, a bus to Plitvice., a famous lake park with wonderful nature and numerous waterfalls. The lake area is diveded into a lower lake area and a high lakes area. The lower area has beautifull waterfalls and a cave. Hiking paths are set out in the area. A train can bring you up to the higher lakes area which is a bit quieter but hosts the most beautiful  waterfall of the park. 

It was a fairytale landscape, the water was turqoise-green. In the late afternoon, I took the bus back to Zagreb where I visited shortly this nice city. Zagreb is also a nice city and it is totally different from Ljubljana. It does have a capital city look when entering the city centre from the train station, with its big square and magnificant buildings. By midnight, I found myself back at the hotel.

The next day, I visited Skocjan cavess national park. Already on the train station in Ljubljana,, Logan, a guy from the US joined and we decided to spent the day together since we both were on our way to Skocjan. The trainride lasted 1.5 hours and a shuttle bus service took us to the caves. While the Postojna caves are among the most beautiful i've seen in terms of drip-stone decorations, the Skocjan caves are definitily the most spectacular. These caves are totally different from the Postojna (and other) showcaves. The caves have been cut by an underground river and the park is a splendid example of karst lanscape. There were several tours which could be done. I choose to do the two underground tours.

The first one, a guided tour, started in one of the dolines (natural sinkhole). It started like a normal cave tour with nice large chanbers. Some decorated with numerous dripstones, others with no decoration due to a ceiling collapse thousends of years ago. The suddenly, we heard the underground river rumbling. As we approached the underground canyon, the rumbling sound increased to the loud sound of flowing water. The cave widened and suddenly, we stood halfway a vask space. On the bottum, 50m below is, we saw the river flowing. The and of the giant space wasn't even visible. According to the guide, the canyon is 1km long, 50m wide and 100 to 160m high, an inmense space! We crossed a bridge over the canyon. This "Bridge of Kasadum" (LOTR) spanned 30 meters and lies 50m above the river bed. After this we followed the canyon for a kilometreuntil we ascended to the exit, in the large doline.

Here, we continued with the second tour. This tour is not guided and  starts with a spectacular walk halfway the doline hight. Then entering a small cave which separates the large doline from the small doline. Then, antering a long cave, following the underground river upstream. It takes about three hours to cvomplete both tours. After that we went back to Ljubljana accompanied by Kayla, also from the US.

The next day, I took the public bus to piran. Piran is probably the nicest coastal city in Slovenia, beautifully located on the Mediterranean coast. It has a distinctive Venecian style, with nice gothic and baroque buildings and the beautiful st George chirch with it's painted cailing. Also th city wall is worth visiting for its splendid view over the area.

The last day was the only day, I booked an organized excursion. The destination was another fairytale-like area, the lake of Bled. We started the day with a visit to Bled gorge. An idyllic gorge just north of the lake. After this we visited the lake itself, with the island. We reached the island by boat which was mannouvered manually since moterboats were not permitted on the lake. After the visit to the island, we visited the beautiful Bled castle whith its splendid chaper.After lunch, we visited the Bohinjs lake, the larges alpine lake in Slovenia. After a visit to the beautiful town of Skofia loka weith it's nice chirch and houses, we returned to Ljubljana.

The next day unfortunately, marked the end of my trip. After a beautiful ride through the Alps and a highspeed trainride through Germany, I reached home at 11 PM. Thus ending a nice trip into a suprisingly beautiful country!