On our last day in Slovenia, we woke up to discover that a wild storm had rained through the night, and strong winds had blown some of the patio items askew.
Melanie and I went out to the Piran Walls early in the morning. From up on the walls we got a view down into the crowded city. The storm clouds from last night had
blown away and clear skies promised a bright day. Although our tickets were for 2 PM, we arrived at Škocjan Caves at about 11 AM, hoping to get onto an earlier tour. No luck - every ticket for every entry time that day
was already sold out. It certainly was a good idea that we bought our tickets ahead of time. In fact, I was able to sell Paul and Leslie's tickets back to the Škocjan Caves ticket booth, so at least those
two slots on the tour would not go unused. We spent part of our time waiting for the 2 PM tour inside the Škocjan Cave museum. They had some exhibits describing the early cave exploration, and the harrowing and
hazardous obstacles the early spelunkers encountered as they delved deeper into the huge system. It was here at Škocjan that the study of caves began with a scientific approach, which is part of the reason
that UNESCO designated them as a natural and cultural world heritage site (besides the fact that the immense caves are so impressive.) Below is the route map for the Škocjan Caves. You begin at the Visitor's Center, where the blue box is labeled START. Every hour, a guide leads each group along the
solid black line, walking along a road and forest path, to the mouth of the cave. The group then is subdivided into smaller parties of about 40 tourists each, and a guide then lead the parties into the
cave - this guided tour inside the cave is shown as the dashed black line. The guide speaks in English to describe various highlights. No pictures are allowed inside the cave, and so I have none. However,
this website has some really nice official photographs inside Škocjan. I found it was best to stay close to guide, because
he carries a powerful light that illuminates the cave formations - they keep lights off inside the cave most of the time to prevent the growth of lampenflora fungus. The most impressive sight on the tour is a deep underground abyss that tourists cross over on the Cerkvenik Bridge. It is a tremendous drop down the chasm to the Reka river. Yet
the guide told us that in the flood of 1965, the Cerkvenik Bridge was 20 meters under water. There is a bottleneck in the underground river course, so when there are heavy rains the water can get so high as to
flood the Silent Chamber (where we first entered the cave system on our tour). Škocjan Caves left intact some of the structures of the early explorations, so we saw cables, pitons, carved steps still anchored to the walls - the early explorers used underground
via ferrata to explore ever further into the cave depths. Tourism thrived even in the earliest decades of the 19th century. We could see remnants of the old tourist route below us, a series of steps and walls carved into the
side of the cavern. The earlier tours used to go much lower, closer to the Reka river, but frequent floods resulted in them building the new, modern route which is much higher along the walls of the cave. The tour exits the Škocjan cave at the end of the dashed black line. From there, each tourist has the option of one of three different routes back to the start - the
green, yellow or pink paths. The path back to the start is at your own pace, it is unguided. Naturally, we selected the longest route, pink path, because it passed through a couple more caves (Marinič Cave and Mahorčič cave) on its way back
to the start. Pictures are permitted here.
I snapped this photo of a sign depicting the Škocjan Caves. In post processing, I added the blue text translation of the Slovenian words. Alas, notice the no photographs icon.
From a posted sign on the tour: "Škocjan Caves developed in the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene limestone between 53 and 140 million years old. Cave passages formed along fissures between rock layers (beds) and faults. The development of such a large cave system was decisively influenced by the Reka, Slovenia's biggest sinking river. It rises at the foot of Mount Sneznik and them flows for 55 kilometers over impermeable flysch rocks. When it reaches permeable limestone rock, its valley gradually deepens into a picturesque gorge. After two kilometers, the river reaches a sinkhole at the point where its valley ends abruptly with a high vertical wall (making it a blind valley) and disappears into Škocjan Caves."
After we finished our tour of Škocjan Caves, we ate an early dinner in the restaurant there. Although they were officially closed, they still served me a cheeseburger and Melanie got a chickenburger and Anthony got grilled vegtables.
We drove on the highway to Kranj, we had booked our overnight stay at Rooms & Apartments Jana - I chose this place because it was just 2 Km from the airport, and I though that we would need to get there early since Paul & Leslie's flight left at 6:40 AM. Anthony said it was his favorite place that we stayed at while in Slovenia.
Driving to Kranj was strange. It is a highway with two lanes in each direction, and since we were headed toward Ljubljana, our direction was jammed with vehicles. Traffic would be flowing
along, and then suddenly slow to a crawl, even coming to complete stop at times - before speeding back up to normal velocities. Yet we never saw any accidents or construction. The slowdowns happened five or six times, yet never
did we see a reason. Maybe somewhere ahead of us, a driver would make an ill advised lane-change, causing everyone behind them to panic stop, which had a standing wave effect, rippling back through the traffic?
That night we witnessed another tremendous storm, with lightning flashes and booming thunder, along with pounding rain. Slovenia seemed to have quite violent storms and I am glad
we never got caught in one while out hiking, especially up in the Julian Alps. The next morning we easily caught our flight to Munich, and flew home to Seattle without incident. Slovenia turned out to be just as nice as promised, and I am glad we visited there.
Panorama Photos
