Postojna Things to Do

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The Lepe Jame (Beautiful Caves) starts at the end of the Russians' bridge cave. They are 500 meters long and there you can see marvel stalactites and stalagmites of the most varied forms and dimensions, old more than two million years (to form a millimeter of stalactite it needs 30 years!!!)

You can see more photos on my travelogue.

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At the end of the Beautiful Caves you arrive to the Black Cave and from there you reach the fantastic Zimska Dvorana (Winter's Caves). Theses cave are great: they are in the lower part of the Postojna Caves and there you can see wonderful example of stalagmites and stalactites, among which you can see the beautiful stalagmite of Diamond and the Column Pillar: two formations becoming the symbols of the caves.

More photos on my travelogue.

Before living the caves you can see a great pool with some pink salamanders: that are Proteus Anguinus. This strange and unknow animals are endemic of these caves: they are 25-30 cm long, they are without eye and can breathe both with the gills and with bellows.

A must see when youre in this area of Slovenia. Take a sweater or coat because when you gown down in the caves its getting colder by the minute.
The tour by train is guided and now and then you can get out

Here a stalagtite and a stalagmite are reaching out to touch each other but oh.....it will take sooooo much time before they will succeed in doing so.......so many more teardrops......

But let's hope that once they will touch hands and then this marriage will change their names: they won't be stalagtite and stalagmite anylonger but : column!

This is a most wonderful photograph to see the droplet hanging at the end of the stalagtite and soon it will fall off, leaving a minute little bit of calcite behind on the rims of the stalagtite.

You now know that stalagtites are hollow and stalagtites are solid....

See the more than grandiose picture of the bit of green: there IS life there deep underneath the surface!!

This is my most precious photograph, it SHOWS what is happening there all the time, every minute, day, week, month, year, century etc.......and thanks to a professional POSTOJNA-cave photographer, who must have a great camera, we can see it here, frozen for ever in this picture and a fraction of a second after this photo was taken it had already changed.....PANTA REI.......

Only a fwe kilometers from the entrance to Postojna Cave is one of the most picturesque buildings in the whole of SLOVENIA situated....and how!!

PREDJAMA CASTLE hangs dramatically in the middle of a 123 m high cliff - a 4-storey structure almost arrogant in its simplicity but...unqoncuered....

Although the current building dates from the end of the 16th Century, since 1202 a castle has stood on this site!

It doesn't take many imagination to see HOW Predjama Castle would be the ideal stronghold for a rebellious knight - and indeed just such a romantic legend survives: the story of the robber Baron Erazem, who today is commemorated by the recently opened Erazem's Passage.

The castle is well worth a visit and.....not only the castle: visiting the underworld below the Castle is an adventure in itself whether you are a tourist, a "caver" or only curious....

Enjoy this outing!! And oh, I almost forgot to tell you that at the entrance you will get a torch and a pair of Wellies before the start of the tour, which will take 60 - 90 minutes, depending..........

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Postojna cave is visited every day by several thousands visitors. In the mean time, the vivarium is visited by a few dozens, may be one hundred of visitors. Even if that was several hundreds, that would mean that only one out of ten visitors comes to the vivarium which is really a pity.

The vivarium presents several dozens of troglobites (= cave dwellers) ie animals that live permanently in caves, trogloxenes (= cave guests) , ie animals that dwell in caves but feed in the open and troglophiles (= cave lovers), ie animals that sometimes live in caves but also live elsewhere.

Along the generations, troglobites have adapted to cave life and have lost any pigments in their skin and usually their eyes. The masterpiece of Postojna vivarium is of course the famous Proteus (Proteus anguineus), named cave salamander or olm in English.

The Proteus is a blind amphibian. It is 15-30 cm long with two pairs of small legs. As it is not pigmented, the color of the blood shows through the skin and the body is pale pink, almost human color. This is why it is also named human fish. It has two outside gills, bright red. It lives in the cave ponds of Postojna and of most caves of the Dinaric Karst in the eastern Adriatic : Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. As there is very little food in the caves, it eats neither much not often. In laboratory experiments, it has been found that it could live without food for as long as 12 years! With little food, it grows very slowly. It can live up to 100 years.

The olm was first mentioned in a book written in 1689 and was considered as a baby dragon. It has sometimes been represented with wings, corresponding to the gills. It was first scientifically studied and described in 1768 when an Austrian scientist, Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti gave it the name of Proteus anguineus.

The olm has been protected since 1922. It is now on the list of rare and endangered species. The caves where live the olm are protected under the rules of the Natura 2000 network. It is forbidden to collect and sell them. They can be picked only for controlled scientific purposes. Some olms have been introduced for studies in caves for example in France (Choranche and Moulis) and Belgium (Han-sur-Lesse).

More about Proteus anguinus on Istrianet web site that give several links for those interested.

It is forbidden to take any photo in the vivarium. The light is dim and not enough for a photo. Repeated flashes would harm the animals and especially the olm. This is why I have no photo of the olm.

Photo 1 is a close up on the olm painted over the entrance of the vivarium.

Photo 2 shows the entrance into the vivarium.