It seems a bit ironic that on the first truly sunny morning we’d had in several days that our main activity was exploring an underground cave. Yet here we were, after driving through the beautiful green countryside, at the entrance to Postojna Cave Park in southwestern Slovenia. (Entering the country was easy. Since both Slovenia and Croatia are in the EU, there were no border formalities.)
To describe Postojna as a cave is a gross understatement. It’s one of the biggest caves in the world, only slightly smaller than Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. To be specific, Postojna is 24-kilometer (15-mile) long karst cave system. You may recall that karst refers to a landscape formed when permeable limestone comes in contact in water. About 3 million years ago, the Postojna cave started to be formed by the Pivka River in 70 million-year old limestone. It was only discovered in 1818.
Before we arrived, Kruno told us that some of the chambers are so big that you feel like you’re in a ballroom. He also instructed us to dress warmly and I’m glad I listened his advice, as the year-round temperature inside the cave is a chilly fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
You can’t just wander through Postojna on your own. In order to visit the cave, you board a special train that travels slowly into the cave, covering a distance of about 2 miles and bringing you deep underground. The lowest point in the cave is 120 meters (nearly 400 feet) below the surface. You and the other passengers are required to stay with a trained guide who leads you through the extensive cave system.
As we followed the guide through a linked series of dramatically lit underground chambers with names such as the Spaghetti Room, the Paradise Room, the White Chamber, and the Red Chamber, I felt an occasional drop of water land on my head. Photos don’t really capture the grandeur and otherworldly beauty of the caves.
I learned a new word during our tour: speleothems. These are geological formations made by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. The dripping of water can create dripstone speleothems. Stalactites are icicle shaped dripstone speleothems. Stalagmites, on the other hand, are speleothems that grow upwards from the cave floor. These formations grow a maximum of 1 centimeter in 100 to 400 years.
The formations were so beautiful, and so temptingly touchable. When I saw them glistening in the light, I just wanted to reach out and very, very gently touch my finger to the surface, which is completely forbidden, of course.
Postojna is known from its biodiversity. Over 115 species of cave dwelling animals can be found here. Someone asked about bats. We didn’t see any and our guide said that they live mostly at the entrance and exit to the cave.
One of the most interesting of the cave fauna is the olm, also known as the proteus. These cave-dwelling amphibians have no pigment and are adapted to life in total darkness. They spend their entire life in the water, where they feed on crustaceans and other small creatures. They have rudimentary lungs as well as external gills. In addition, the proteus can survive for ten years without food, and they can live up to one hundred years (although it doesn’t sound like much of a life). They’re classified as an endangered species. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t take any photos of an olm. However, a large display outside the cave had photos and information about this unusual animal.
One of the last parts of the cave we saw is known as the Concert Hall. It’s actually as big as the arena of the Colosseum in Rome and can hold 10,000 people. This enormous chamber has excellent acoustics and orchestras have performed here.
The last stop on our tour was the underground gift shop (I bought a T-shirt with an olm on it). While we were waiting to return to the surface, we stood beside the underground river that has carved the cave.
We then exited through a man-made tunnel that brought us out into the blindingly bright midday sunshine. Having seen Postojna, I can understand why it’s the country’s top tourist attraction.
After a quick lunch, we resumed our journey to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, located in the center of the country. You’ll learn about this delightful city in my next (and final) post about this trip.
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