Here We Go A-Spelunking

This morning after breakfast we loaded up Otto and headed south-west on the A2 to Slovenia's Karst region  Because of the amount of limestone in the Karst, there are many many cave systems.  There are two main caves there, so we decided on the caves that are Slovenia's self-proclaimed "most famous", the Postojna Caves.  These caves are also Slovenia's most visited tourist attraction.  We pulled into one of the numerous parking lots alongside a slough of tour buses.  Right away we were all surprised at how commercial everything was there - gift shop after gift shop, cafe after cafe.  We bought our tickets (probably the most we've paid for a single attraction on the trip) and headed towards the mouth of the cave.

At noon, a whole gaggle of us were herded down a hallway and onto an open-air train that took us a mile into the mountain.

Once the train stopped, we all got off and started filing down well maintained paths.  The formations are really incredible.  Stalactites, stalagmites cave curtains and pillars everywhere, strategicly backlit.

The caves were chilly - 10 degrees, and we got randomly dripped on.  Our tour guide told us that the cave is about 3 million years old and that each centimeter takes about 100 years to form.  It looked a lot like Fraggle Rock, or like Smiegel was going to pop out at any moment.

We were allowed to take photos, but no flash as the light is bad for the caves, and some caverns have actually started to grow algae from the light already in there.  Also, the tour guide telling us to turn the flash off doesn't mean people listen.  

We walked up and up the inside of the mountain and then down, for a total of a mile.  Sometimes the lights would turn off showing everyone how dark it is in there and also making Kelly think that this is where and how she dies.

There is one kind of animal that lives in the caves, and it's a little pink salamander-type lizard.  They are completely blind (as they live in the dark), their heards beat twice a minute and they only need to eat once every twelve days as they hardly move.  The original cave explorers were scared of them as they thought they were baby dragons and that grown-up dragons lived deeper in the cave.

At the end of the tour we got to a giant cavern that apparently has a 5 - 6 second echo, a gift shop, and the world's only underground post office where you can get a special postmark on your mail.

An hour and a half later all said and done, it was back on the train to the mouth of the cave and into the blinding daylight.  We stopped at one of the many cafes for lunch, paid for parking and headed to another point of interest 9km away in the nearby hamlet of Predjama:

Predjama Castle is a medieval castle built half into a giant cave, still in the Karst.  We had read that it is not worth the money to tour the inside of the castle - just viewing it from the outside is magnificent enough.  We also read a little bit about the history of the castle: one of the main occupants, Erazem, was a 15th century Robin Hood-type figure who stole from the rich (but kept for himself). This obviously enraged the rich from whom he stole, but even laying siege to the castle didn't work as Erazem always seemed to have fresh supplies (he had a secret tunnel).  Attackers finally discovered a way that they could get rid of Erazem for good, and that was when he was on the shitter, located on the outer wall of the top floor, a treacherous servant raised a flag and a single canonball was launched, catching Erazem with his pantaloons down.

After getting a few snaps and a few longing glances, we went back to the car and headed back to the inn for happy hour, dinner and bed, getting ready for our last full day in Slovenia.