When we turned on CNN this morning, we were excited to see that Sochi, Russia was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics. The area is a beautiful place, and the city’s finalist presentation was outstanding.
This afternoon we booked a 5.5-hour “Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle” tour (48 euros per person) from Kompas, the leading travel & tour company in Slovenia. www.kompas.si We were expecting a bus tour and were thrilled to find out the company was using an oversized van with spacious seating for nine, including the driver/guide, a second Spanish guide and seven guests.
Carlos was our driver and English guide. He is from Portugal, and had lived a year in San Antonio, Texas in high school. He is in Ljubljana to study at the University, and stayed for the summer to guide tourists. We drove to the Karst region located between Trieste, Italy and Ljubljana.
The first stop was the Predjama Castle, built in a high cavern in the middle of a cliff. The original cave/castle dates back to the 13th century. The Predjama Castle’s most famous inhabitant was Erazem, who lived there in the 15th century. He was hiding out from Austrian emperor Frederick III who paid mercenaries to pursue him. They knew he was in the castle, but waited more than a year to starve Erazem out. This didn’t work since Erazem had a secret passage through the cave to the other side of the mountain and out to the cherry trees nearby. Finally, the mercenaries paid off a servant who pointed a light on the “outhouse” when Erazem was using it. This “spotlight” allowed the mercenaries to aim a missile on the outhouse spot, and killed Erazem in 1484. In 1570 the castle was renovated to its present form, and owned by several different royal families until WW II. We toured the castle and saw the beginning of the secret passage, which tourists can tour on a longer guided tour with light helmets and cave exploration equipment, or even in the stream via rubber raft. www.turizem-kras.si
10 kilometers from the castle is the Postojna Cave, with 20 kilometers of passages. Rail lines have been in the cave since 1872. Guests ride on the cave train about 15 minutes into the cave, then have a guided walking tour, then ride the train back out. The entire tour is about 1 and 1/12 hours; the cave is quite cool at 8 -10 degrees Celsius – brrr in our short sleeves. The cave is home to the “human fish”, a subterranean snake-like fish. This was a great day.