Slovenia Caves!

Hi, Scott. My experience has always been that it's cheaper to do train tickets when your there in that area. Have you been to Slovenia before?

Postojna is a pretty small town, and the caves are 1km outside down town. It IS good ways from the train station to the caves, and taxis may not necessarily be there - so I would try to plan that ahead of time. (Trust me - walking it is not fun. LOL. See car rental suggestion below.)

Postojna and Predjama (the Cave Castle) are the main sites. There are a couple nice restaurants, but the town is pretty small. There are, up in the hills some rock arches - like you'd see in Arches National Park, and there is a very large hill you can go up to for a beautiful view. If you'd like info on that, let me know, and I'll ask my friends in Postojna. The country around is also beautiful.

FYI - Predjama is pretty much a taxi trip (unless they've added a bus route). It's not expensive - but if you want to go see the arches, etc - it might be worth it to rent a car in Postojna or Ljubljana on your way down. Would get you to Skocjan too. The roads are wide, well marked, and easy to drive.

FYI2 - Going by train to Trieste, you actually have to take a bus from the border area to downtown, so it means moving bags again, etc. Just a heads up, cause it's kind of a pain. The bus ride is usually included in your train fare.

If you have any other questions, let me know. I've been in Postojna a lot, and have friends that live there.

PS - besides the regular cave tours, there are also all the crazy ones were you put on wet suits or cover-alls and construction hats, and go crawling around in the mud under Predjama, etc. They even used to have scuba diving cave ones, but they were $$$$$$$.

We bought train tickets from Ljub to Budapest in July a day or two before our departure with no problems. Not sure if the overnight train would be different . . . . Have you thought about renting a car for a day to see the caves and castle? It might save you the time spent trying to find your way from one sight to another.

We also walked to the caves from the station, but in our case, we had taken the bus from Ljubljana to Postojna. It took us about thirty-forty minutes, mostly up-hill. There are not any sidewalks and you are out in the middle of nowhere, so you should wear comfortable shoes and also have a hat and water. Postojna seemed to me to be an exceptionally sleepy town for the large number of tourists that we saw in the caves. We bought an ice cream cone, paid to use the restrooms, and that was about it. There were various cafes about and some shops, but nothing spectacular. Be advised that the English language tour seems to be a catch-all group for everyone else. On our tour, there were about 100 people and my small group of three people were the only ones who spoke any English. It was especially filled with Italians - I'm not sure why they did not take the Italian tour. We went with the flow, but if you have your heart set on being able to hear the tour guide and you do not wish to be crushed by a hundred Italians, I recommend just joining the French or German tour - they were very small. Even if you could not understand the guide, it would still be more pleasant than our experience! Regardless of little problems, the caves are well worth the visit; the train ride into the cave is particularly thrilling and memorable.

I am sure both caves are spectacular. However, if there is only time to visit one of the caves can anyone recommend which one is worth the most time and effort? Also I believe we will have a rent a car, so would rather sleep in the caves area than return to Ljubljana. Is there anywhere to stay in Divica? Any website I can use to find accommodations? I haven't seen anything so far. Finally, does anyone know how far it is from the caves to Piran, just in case we were to drive on from the caves to spend the night?

Thank you for any suggestions.

Deborah..we chose to go to the Skocjan caves in 2007 because it is a Unesco World Heritage site,(and the one at Postojna was always crowded with cars & tour buses) the tour was 2-2 1/2 hrs....Postojna is only about an hours drive to Piran and the road is great..but no parking in Piran center. Check out www.slovenia.info for places to stay and also the routeplanner on the site..the one Via Michelin. We like staying at tourist farms. I found the site invaluable when we were planning our trip 2 years ago and again this year as we are returning in late Aug.we liked Slovenia so much we want to see the areas we had to miss before! If you haven't seen it another site that is just fun is www.burger.si Keeps me going until our holiday.

Near Skocjan Caves you can visit the Lipica Stud Farm where they breed the world-renowned Lipizzaner horses.

We spent the night near Predjama Castle, visted the Stud farm in the morning, then toured the Skocjan Caves in the afternoon and were able to drive to Rovinj in Croatia for dinner. It was a great day.

You can see our pictures at: http://gadtravel.blogspot.com/2008/10/slovenia-and-croatia.html