Days 82-83-84-85 Slovenia - Caves, lakes, castles, Oh My!

Today is Thursday, September 4 is day 85, and if all goes as planned, we will be out and about exploring this afternoon, but this morning we are hunkered down in the kitchenette of our Airbnb taking care of needed business (laundry, email, photo editing, blogs, trip planning for Turkey, etc.).

Tomorrow, September 5 - our five year anniversary of our Sail Away from San Francisco,  we are on our way via train to Vienna.  I've been waiting over 40 years to see the famous Lipizzan stallions perform in Vienna.  When Russ and I lived in Germany in the early 70's, many of our military friends had gone to Vienna and raved about the show.  We never made it at that time to Vienna, so now we will be on our way and have already purchased tickets for Sunday's performance.

Let's back track to Days 82-84.

Monday , Day 82 - Rain in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Slovenia feels and looks like our memories of Austria.  Alpine houses,

flower boxes filled with geraniums, small village towns with narrow winding streets, tall mountains, waterfalls and rushing rivers, beautiful lakes, castles built in seemingly impossible places, ski areas waiting for snow, green farm fields surrounded by forests.


Everything is green because it rains here quite a bit.  

Our first day here, we spent most of it in old town Ljubljana, walking the wet and rainy streets, taking refuge under cover for bowls of hot soup and waiting for the rain to stop.  Eventually it did, but the skies were gray and the sun didn't peak out once.

We took the rail train to the old castle and had a good look around.  Unlike many castles that have been restored to look old, The castle here has left windows into historical parts of the castle, but by and large it has been modernized into a venue that supports performance, arts, fairs, weddings, etc. so that it can be self-supporting and residents of the community as well as tourists can enjoy the ambiance on top of the mountain where it presides over the city.

Attached above one of the castles arches a family of swallows was having lunch on the fly.

Watched for quite awhile and the last little guy on the right rarely got fed.  The pecking order goes from left to right.

We met up with our AirBnB hosts Milenko and Anna after our tour and had some great Thai food. They are a lovely couple who now live in Italy, and help Milinko's mother rent out the rooms in her three story alpine home.  Slovenia is such a small country, that an hour's drive from the capital city in any direction takes you into another country.  We are staying in one place for the week and drive to almost anywhere in 45 minutes to see what we are interested in and to see most of the country.

Tuesday Day 83 - More Rain - Good day for Caving

Tomorrow looks like the best day to visit Bled Lake (the sun is supposed to peak out for a couple of hours), but today is a rainy day and a good day to travel southwest to Postojna to the limestone caves.
These caves are a popular tourist attraction and have been since the 1800's.

We boarded a small cave train for the first two kilometers of our excursion.  Today's trains are electric, but earlier trains were not.  The beautiful formations were covered in soot from the past and we were growing more and more disappointed with the condition of the cave's interior, but once we reached the walking part of our tour, our disappointment turned to wonder.  We walked a kilometer under ground and then rode the train back out.

The train ride was fun.  It was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland zipping through the tunnels many of which had been barely cut away so that our heads were not ripped off.

You definitely had to keep your hands and arms inside the open cars, and just to be on the safe side we both moved our heads to the middle where the ceiling was generally a little higher.

The cave system here is over 21 kilometers long with three different levels.  Much of level one has collapsed.  The third level is where the river runs wild now.  Our tour was on the second level.  The cave ceilings on level two are 30-70 meters high depending on where one is standing.  There is such a huge distance between the stalactites and stalagmites that the dripping mineral filled water splats on top shaping the bottom formations more like hoodoos than pointed spires.

Can you see the chicken in the upper left

Postojna is a very wet cave of over 3,000,000 years old and still growing, and is incredibly decorated with pure white limestone and rust and amber dripping from iron and other minerals through which the water seeps.  There are examples of chambers that are all white, others that are warm reds and pinks, some side by side columns are completely different in color.

Soda straws and spaghetti hang from the ceilings.

These formations grow 1 centimeter every 1000 years.  Some of these fragile hangings are 20,000 years old and less than a foot long.

Flow stone, and translucent curtains ooze from the walls.  

We just couldn't help but say wow! at every turn.  It was massively stunning.

Look closely to see the people in the lower left quadrant (red shirts) for relevance of size and scale.

After our cave explorations, we drove to the Predjama Castle, initially built and added onto since the 1200's.   This castle is built into the mouth and side of a large cave.

Not built for comfort or beauty, the castle was built for defense against intruders with an escape route through the caves above and below.

It served it's purpose well withstanding sieges up to one year and a day until the then current owner and robber knight Erazem was killed by a well aimed rock ball thrown by a catapult while using the privy in 1484.  It has changed ownership and gone through many reconstructions and additions since then.

Wednesday, Day 84 - Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj

According to the weather forecast, between 10 and 2:00 today, we might see some sun.  So we head out to Lake Bled.  Wish we had had full sun to capture the blue green characteristics of the clear alpine lake, but we were happy to see glimmers of sunlight as we took the 6 kilometer walk around the lake, snapping photos of castles

 and churches,

casting off the rain gear, sipping lattes and eating the famous Lake Bled Cream Cake.

The birds are not shy.  One must eat quickly or the birds will eat it all.

Fall is definitely in the air.  First of the leaves are turning yellow and fluttering to the ground, and ivies are turning crimson.

From Lake Bled we drove to Lake Bohinj where we visited an ancient chapel with worn but still prominent frescos.

This lake looks like it is meant to be a summer camp for families and kids, and a fun place to be with kayak and bike rentals, established tenting areas, ropes courses, and hiking trails.  Speaking of bikes, this one looked fun, but I don't think the guy was too happy to have his photo taken....or is that a peace sign?

Our drive home to Ljubljana was via a one lane twisting backroad through a countryside of forests, green hills, dales, little churches and Alpine villages. We saw some hay stacking racks we had never seen before.   Russ jumped outside of the car once just to capture the Sound of Music Moment.  Absolutely lovely.

So that brings us back to today, Thursday, September 4, Day 85.  The laundry is now hung out to dry in the garage (no dryer here and still drizzly).    We will see how that goes, and hope by this evening it is dry enough to pack our bags for our early morning departure tomorrow. The blog is almost done, breakfast has been eaten,  photos still need some editing and uploading, but it looks like maybe we'll have some exploration time in the afternoon.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Ljubljana, Slovenia