We have new pictures up in the gallery! New highlights include Lake Ballaton, (Hungary) and Zagreb and Dubrovnik. (Croatia)
Sunday was August 15th, which is a national holiday in Slovenia and many other countries in the region. Its the Day (or feast, depending on the country) of the assumption. Since most of Ljubljana was more or less shut down, wewe took a day trip to the Škocjanske Caves, one of the "finest caves in Europe"
is such a small country that it took us a mere 2 hours to go from Ljubljana, in the center of the country, to these caves near the Italian border. The caves were maginficent!
Our trip there involved a 2 hour train, and then a 40 minute walk through villages and forests following little green signs to the caves. As the path narrowed and we stopped seeing any other humans along the way, we began to wonder if we might be the only folks visiting the caves that day. We both imagined that at the end of the little trail through the woods that there would be a little both with some teenager giving out tickets.
When we emerged from the woods, we were at a huge beer garden and tourist information center next to a giant parking lot. So much for that. Most people take cars to the caves as it turns out. In the end there were about 50 people on our particular tour.
In addition to the excitement of travelling and meeting new people, I really like natural wonders like these. The caves are about 6 or 7 kilometers long, but we saw just 2.7k, according to the guide. The caves are fairly touristed, but were really fun to visit nonetheless. Highlights included long journeys through stalagtites and stalagmites. One stalagmite was over 250 thousand years old, and was 15m tall.. that's about four stories! One part of the cave was 3km long and 100m high, with a river running through the middle. Yes, that's almost two miles long, and 300 feet high. We walked through it on a ledge about halfway up the wall above the river, it was really beautiful.
There's really not too much more to say about the caves that you can't read on the web site, but it made for a great day trip until we were emerging from the cave at 5:40 and saw that the last afternoon train to Ljubljana was at 5:47.. and we still had our 40 minute walk back to the station. We ended up hanging out at the beer garden eating Gnocci until about 7 and then did our hike at twilight to catch our train at 8:04pm.
Another fun visit in Slovenia..