Postojna Things to Do

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The cave railway was built in 1872 which started with guides pushing little carriages along the rails before it was electrified in 1884. The train takes you about 4km into the cave and travels quite quickly. Some areas are quite low so you have to watch out where you’re going if you’re fairly tall. The train brings you into a large area known as the Great Mountain where you get out and follow the crowd to waiting areas which are divided into five different languages such as English, Slovene, and Italian etc so that your guide can narrate to you on the main features of the cave during the tour. The only thing with this is that the English tour is very popular as it’s made up of British, American, Australians etc as well as non-English speaking nations such as the Dutch and Japanese as there isn’t a tour for them in their own language.

The cave entrance is actually the exit. The entrance is just to the right where you stand and queue up. The cave exit contains a lot of graffiti that dates back to the 13th century and this, along with signatures, makes up what is called The Gallery of Old Signatures. If you stand near the exit on a warm day you can feel the cool air coming out.

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People come to Postojna only for one reason: The caves. OK, maybe two, the second being the "human fish" living in the caves. The Postojna caves are the second largest cave system in the world and opened for tourists throughout the year. The "human fish" (Proteus Anguinus), which made these caves so famous, is a blind amphibian without any pigments. Its skin colour gave it its nickname.

You can visit the cave itself and the vivarium. In the cave, you will board a small train which will bring you the inner parts of the cave. Arrived there, you have to got to the sign of the language in which you would like to have your guided tour. Slovene, english, german, italian and french (check out the times for french as it is not always offered!) are offered and the tour takes a little more than an hour. The vivarium shows you the species living in the caves. You will get a flashlight and so you have the chance to see the beetles, spiders and all the other animals in their terrariums and vivariums. Next to the caves, there are a couple of usual tourist facilities like restaurants and souvenir shops. Keep in mind that this place is a very touristy one. That means that prices are expensive and that you even have to pay for the toilets.

For prices and times check out the webpage. I remember that I paid the normal price for the cave, but for the vivarium a paid a price which was less than the children's price. I didn't complain...

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The fact theat these caves were only discovered in the last century seems amazing given their size. Access is only via an organised tour (10,12 & 1400 in winter 9-1800 hourly in summer) that takes a train into the depth of the mountain. After disembarking an english speaking tour guide will show you around the labrinth, there are various PA stations along the route so you don't need to be hot on the guides heels (we were in a group of about 40 people). It is requested that you do not use cameras.

The entrance to the caves boasts a large hotel (Jama) that is spa orientated, there is also several cafes and walks alongside the river that emerges from the caves.

situated very close to the caves it is an understimated architectonic jewel.built inside the mountain enjoys a fantastic location and even the inside is very interesting with many affascinating displays.

one of the top sites in slovenia!
amazing caves easy to explore with a small trip by train, great fun, inside the caves and then a little walk with a guided tour.there are many chambers to visit and the little transparent animal can be seen, it s one of the rarest example in the world
if u r travelling by train is a bit tricky to reach them as there are no connections from the train station(maybe summer 2006 something will change).hitchike, that is very safe in slovenia, or walk(very long one..).if u r by car just follow the signs, it s very close to the main highway.if somehow you find yourself in the city center(not a very attractive city..)just walk from the main square(the red square), it s a 15 minutes trek through the forest(very nice one)

Visitors can see a large part (over 5 km) of this 20+ km cave. However, it is very crowded and unless you get there early in the morning you will have to wait a long time in line before you could get in. The best part of visitng this cave was the train ride entering and leaving the cave... you go at pretty fast speeds and pass very close to a lot of beautiful formations. The majority of the tour is by foot (at least an hour) and you pass by many "rooms" with strange rock formations. I was not too impressed by it and didn't really find it more impressive than other caves that I have been too.

The cave is pretty cold, so remember to bring a jacket. They rent coats at the entrance, if you forget. The entrance fee is pretty expensive, at 2900 SITS for adults, and around 1500 for students and children.

No one visits Postonja without visiting the cave. This is probably the most famous cave of Slovenia (which is full with such caves) and one of the most famous in the entire world. The area, Karst, has given its name to these beautiful natural phenomenon, Karstic Caves. Everyhwere you go here you will see signs directing you to a cave.

If you only have time for one cave, you should go to Postonja. It's easily accessible, there is a little train taking you into the cave. There you keep on walking in the cave for about 1.5 km and then back by train. A total of about 5 km from a total of 20.

You can see more images of the cave in the travelogue.

Time Table:

Jan-Mar, Nov-Dec: 10:00, 12:00, 14:00
Apr, Oct: 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00
May-Sep: 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00, 17:00, 18:00

The tour lasts an hour and a half and there are English, Slovenian, Italian and German speaking guides. From April to October, there are also some French guided tours.