Day 6 – Predjama Castle, Skocjan Caves & Piran — Slovenia

The first stop of the day was Predjama Castle. This Castle was built into a cave on a sheer cliff. It was quite impressive and built in the 9^th century. There were many stories about the castle including how the owner during the 15^th century was using the outhouse situated at the very edge of the castle and was killed by a single cannon ball launched his way by his enemies below.

While walking back to the car, I asked if I could drive. It was a 5.5 mile stretch of country road and a good place for me to learn to drive the new car. The BMW has heads up display which shows speed, GPS, arrows, directions, lane changes etc. Once it popped up in my field of vision, I was fixated on it like a video game. I kept wanting to have the speed value aligned with the divider line. I had to have Matt turn off the display before I did something to reinforce his fear of me driving his car.

There are 2 big cave systems in Slovenia…The Predjama Cave and the Skocjan Cave. People here dispute which is better and there was only time to do one. I love caves and take advantage of any opportunity to explore one. The Predjama Caves sounded interesting but I had read it took visitors underground via a small train. Skocjan Cave had warnings of it being very strenuous with 596 stairs. I chose Skocjan Cave because a cave should be explored on foot and not turned into a “Disney” ride and the billboards showing kids happily hanging off the train along the cave route only confirmed that I did not want to go there.

Skocjan Cave has 1/5 the number of visitors. There was a short hike downhill to the cave entrance. The cave is divided into 2 sections, dry & wet and is 3 miles long. The dry cave was filled with large caverns covered with stalactites and stalagmites, just as you would expect. The chambers were enormous, but it was going to be hard to top the cave systems I have seen in Virginia. There was not a lot of “factoids” provided. The group pretty much wandered through the formations quietly. The formations were all still dripping and growing so I did not understand why this section was called “dry”…then we heard the water!

The narrow path opened up into the biggest cavern I have ever seen. It’s technically called a “canyon.” It is literally the Grand Canyon complete with raging river, only underground. It was completely surreal. The canyon was crossed via a bridge that was 350 feet above the river below. I loved this place! Photos were not allowed, but Matt snuck a few. We exited the cave through the original entrance which was enormous. Hikers looked like ants silhouetted against the daylight. It was worth all 400+ steps. We took the lift up instead of hiking another 200 steps.

By late afternoon, we arrived in the coastal town of Piran and were happily greeted by the hostel’s owner, Borut (he spoke 7 languages fluently). The room was simple, but bed liners seemed to be a good option since the "sheet" only covered 1/2 the bed. 

The town was small and is architecturally similar to Venice which is directly across the Adriatic Sea. We enjoyed typical life of a coastal town…lots of boats, kids playing in the piazza, people strolling along the waterfront and eating gelato, a big church and bell tower, etc. The bell tower is a smaller replica of the one in St. Mark's Square in Venice. Everyone was so friendly which seemed to be the norm in Slovenia. The evening ended with gnocchi & scampi followed by gelato in the main square.

Love, love, love Slovenia!