Skocjan Caves, Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle
Before arriving in Kamnik, we had a long day ahead of us first. Slovenia is known for its caves (next to Lake Bled ;-)). There were two caves along our way: Skocjan Caves and Postojna Caves. We couldn’t decide which one to visit… The opinions over them are divided as well, and with a boyfriend who was a guide in the Caves of Han for a long time, this was a VERY important decision. So, we decided to do them both. We both our tickets for the Postojna cave online and left early enough to be able to take the first tour in the Skocjan caves.
Let’s compare them both.
Skocjan – negative point: you can’t take picture. Which is terrible for me. But, even if they would allow you to take them, they wouldn’t turn out right neither, because it is too dark. The main curiosity in the cave is the canon inside the cave. Which was something we hadn’t seen before and it was overwhelming when we were walking there. The giganticness of the cave/ canon, with the lake inside it, was really nice! But other than that, there weren’t a lot of spectacular stalagmites or stalactites to behold. Which is fine! But…
…such a different with the Postojna cave, where you have wow-moments around every turn. You enter the cave with a train… I mean.. A TRAIN! There’s a railroad inside the cave for about 2 kilometers. After that the guide takes you on a little stroll around some cave rooms. And they were all so nice! This cave is also known for its famous little cave salamander. They keep a few of them (I think small ones) in a terrarium at the end of the visit. They get changed every few months to do the least harm. And YOU CANNOT TAKE PICTURES OF THEM. They say it, it’s on the terrarium… but there are still some freaking idiots who still take those damn pictures, which results in killing them (its skin is very sensible to light, which is normal, as it lives in a dark cave…).
If we had to choose between the two of them, we would choose the Postojna cave every single time. Just because it was overwhelming at every moment. And you could take pictures, bad pictures, but still. They allow it ;-).
But you can’t do wrong with any of them.
After our cave adventure, we also stopped by the Predjama Castle. We weren’t very impressed by it, still I’m happy that at least we got to visit one castle during this holiday :-). The Predjama Castle was built inside/ against a mountain. And the mountain is a full part of the interior of the castle as well. There’s an audio guided tour to take, but it took us too long, so we listened to a few parts, but visited the castle a lot quicker (too much people in too small rooms). If you have the time, it’s something you could visit. If time is scars, than I think there are better places to go to.
In Kamnik we stayed in our last apartment. A very small place, where we had to sleep together with our son in one room (ow, the stress). But a very nice owner, who lend us umbrella’s on rainy days and welcomed us with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
Ljubljana
The capital with the best name on earth (maybe except for Antananarivo, which I can appreciate as well). I could not not visit it :-). I think it is by far one of the smallest capitals we’ve been to, but it was such a charming place! We loved it. we really did. Although we didn’t stay very long neither (if you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it; and with our baby, we don’t linger in places), this is a place I would come back to. Again and again. To eat, drink or just …be. We climbed up to the castle (didn’t visit it) – there’s also a funicular, saw the three bridges, the dragon bridge, the center, … We had a very nice lunch there, in a tucked away area, which was so charming as well. You can easily ride a bike here, and go to the places a bit further away (we were walking the entire time and wanted to walk towards everything, but we were tired and we skipped the walking part – we just went straight to the eating part ;-)).
I honestly feel that I’m doing this city short with the short amount of text I can write here. But just go and see for yourself. Then you’ll understand (hopefully) ;-).
Velika Planina, Robanov Kot & Logarska Dolina
Another highlight of our trip was Velika Planina. The cable car isn’t a huge drive away from Kamnik; and that was actually one of the reasons I chose to stay here.
Velika Planina is a herdersmen’s settlement. In summer, the herdersmen take their cows up on the mountain where there are several settlements with herdersmen’s huts. You can take a stroll around the settlements. You have to take a cable car and two chair lifts (if you want to, that is, you can also hike up the mountain), to reach de start of the walk around the settlement. We left the ground floor with a beaming sun, and reached the top/ start of the walk in the thick fog… that’s how fast the weather can change in the mountains ;-). And we managed to get burned as well. Woops. But it really was very nice to walk around the mountain. In some places it was really touristic, but in others there were no other people to be found (and it was a bit uncertain if we were actually walking the right way… but we managed to get back to the start, so…). We bought some cheese of one of the herdersman, which was absolutely delicious :-). The cowbells were ringing through the fog, the views were amazing, … This is the place to visit! You can also stay here for the night (or a few nights), which seems to me something to think about. Because it has to be so nice being up there, with the sunset (or sunrise?), when all the other tourists have gone…
I thought we were doing a walk for about half an hour, in the end our walk was about three hours. But still, we wanted to visit some other places around here. We took a major detour, around Robanov Kot and the Logarska Dolina before we returned to Kamnik. Both are two big valleys in Slovenia. But … yes, you have to pay an entrance, to enter in the Logarska Dolina. Which we paid, because I wanted my picture. There are more things to do here: hiking, riding a bike, … we just stayed here for 15 minutes or so …
Arboretum Volcji Potok & Kamnik
On our final day, we took it easy. One of the tips of the owner of the apartment was to visit the Arboretum in Volcji Potok. It was raining, and that doesn’t seem like the right weather to walk inside a large garden… but it also meant that there were few people with the same idea. It wasn’t anything special though, there are nicer botanical gardens that I’ve seen, but I did like the butterfly-room. And it was nice to walk around, but I found the artwork of the giant whales and dinosaurs a bit weird, to say the least. I still don’t get the link, if there was a link to begin with.
In the afternoon we walked around Kamnik, a charming medieval town. There wasn’t a lot to see or do there, but we walk towards Mali Grad, one of the two castles in the town. There you had a very nice view over the city, with all its orange rooftops and the mountains behind it. That was actually or main goal for the afternoon. And finding our final ice cream shop, which was a bit trickier, but we did find one.
Without any scorpions or other beast, we could leave Kamnik and thus Slovenia behind us after that. We were not sad to go home. We’re never sad to go home, but this time we were so looking forward to our own bed (en putting our son in his own bed/ room). We shortened our way back, and you can read all about it, in the final post of our roadtrip.
Around the world in a lifetime 