Day 36 - Sunday 5th June 2005

Weather has turned a little cool today so we headed off for the caves at Postojonska.  What an amazing place.  The cave is the largest cave in the "classic karst" whatever that means, but it was huge, and the most visited in Europe.  We boarded a little train and set off for a ride through the cave. The ride on the little train reminded me of the tunnel scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, we whizzed through 4 kilometres of caverns and narrow tunnels, over abysses to the start of the walking point.  The caverns are gigantic and well lit so that you can appreciate the scale.  The temperature is about 8C, pretty chilly, and no pictures are allowed, but no-one seemed to take much notice of that, so I clicked away as well, but didn't use flash.  We walked for about 1.7km through the tunnels lined with all kinds of stalagmites, stalactites, pillars, flow stones, curtains in fact all the usual cave stuff.  Our English speaking guide was very informative and we finished up at a vast cavern with a 40 metre roof, and a souvenir shop, before boarding the train back.  Next stop was about 10k away at the Predjama Castle.  This awesome 16^th Century castle is embedded in a cave opening half way up a 130 metre cliff, its mostly restored and you can wander through the numerous levels and back into the caves behind.  It was very impressive.  As we were leaving a group of men dressed in medieval attire arrived at the lists below the castle.  One half were obviously the masters and the other half the apprentices, and it appeared that a training session in swordsmanship was taking place, they even included a samurai.  Back at Ljubljana we went on down along the river for some dinner.  Along the way we spotted a film crew filming a scene and a little further on a band entertaining folks in the square.