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Published: December 15th 2007
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This morning was possibly our earliest start yet in our travels, we even made time for breakfast. We caught the bus to Postojna pretty easily and the journey took us approximately an hour. We knew that the cave tours didn't begin until ten in the morning, however the bus timetable really didn't mesh with the cave timetable in any way shape or form.
We jumped off the bus at the station which is in the middle of the town, it felt like a ghost town. It was ten to nine in the morning but there was very little movement anywhere. We had a glance around the square and easily found a sign directing us to the caves. It took little over five minutes to get to the main entrance to the caves and then we found ourselves completely stuck. None of the shops, cafes or ticket booths were open and therefore there was nowhere to shelter from the bitter cold. We wandered around the cave complex and wasted a while even though there really wasn't anything of interest. At around half nine a few cars started to arrive but they were just employees who disappeared inside. Eventually we were able
to buy our tickets and then we went and sat by the entrance. Whilst we were chilling out singing Christmas carols, the foyer began to fill up. We stayed sitting down but people began pushing themselves as near to the entrance as humanly possible which was rather amusing to watch for a while.
Once they opened the gates into the caves, everyone rushed into another section where we were hurried into two long trains. You travel for a considerable distance on the train through lots of different caves and past water and rock and stuff. The train moved fairly quickly and so you barely had chance to see one cave before you were in another, but it was very fun if not chilly. Once you get off the train you have to find the pole with your language of choice on it. There were hundreds of Italians who crowded together at the first pole and plenty of Germans and Slovenians etc who all crowded at their own poles. It turned out that we were the only two English people in the whole group so we recieved our own personal tour. The guy who took around us around was pretty
amusing and kept the dull bits to a minimum whilst entertaining us with really bad jokes. He also enjoyed pointing out rock formations that vaguely looked like things such as cammels, boobies, and other fun parts of the body. We were pretty impressed with the entire cave tour, it was massive and just beat any other caves we have been to on our travels. The tip of the iceburg is that there are actually a few species of animals living inside the caves, the coolest of which are the salamanders. They have evolved to these super delicate creatures that cannot handle light, have no eyes but they don't need to eat for eight to twelve years. They have a few that they have in a display pool and rotate them so as the light won't aggrevate them.
Once we finished with the caves, we decided we would quite like to try and get to another set of caves that were near by. We tried at the bus station but there were not only any buses going there, but there were no buses back to Ljubljana for a long time. We figured that we had time to kill, so we
walked up to the train station which is located a few kilometers out of the centre. There were no trains going to the second set of caves and the train to Ljubljana was even later than the bus. We were both a little bit miffed because we had deliberately chosen a Sunday to travel on because the times that we were given by Tourist Information meant that we could have made both sets of caves in one day. Unfortunately the times were wrong on both accounts and so instead we sat and waited in the bus station for the one thirty bus that didn't actually materialise. Once we realised that the bus wasn't making an appearance, we dashed for the warmth of a nearby pub that sold us to hot chocolates which we nursed until the next bus was due to arrive. That bus did actually turn up and we made our way back to Ljubljana.
Back at the hotel there was no work being done on the premises and so we decided that we would just stay in and relax around the hotel. We nipped on google and looked up a pizza delivery place and then went upstairs
to watch a little bit of tv. When we could stand it no longer we asked the receptionist to order us the pizza. We then watched an episode of "just for laughs" except it was presented in Slovenian. Weird. The pizza took ages to arrive and when it did we were pretty much foaming at the mouths. We sat and ate pizza whilst watching a film about a man who could see into the future. Funnily enough Rob had already seen the last part of the film so he knew the end of the film. Once we'd finished eating we returned to our room to pack our things and to prepare for another very early start the next day.
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