Skocjan cave

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Monday July 22 –Today I took the train to Divaca, about an hour and a half from Ljubljana. My actual destination, however, was the Skocjan cave system. I took the train at 8:12 because it is one of few trains that have a direct bus connection to the caves. It’s only a 10 minute bus ride, but it would take 45 minutes of walking or so to get there, and I needed to make sure I got back to Ljubljana in time to meet Tina. The train was pretty quiet for the first hour, and then two Japanese guys got on with their Slovenian guide. They were older and were learning each other’s languages, quite loudly. It was cute and quite hilarious.

When we got to the cave, I went to the counter and bought a ticket for the “classic” tour. It’s a guided tour and the only way to visit the main caves. There was also another self-guided tour through a smaller section, and I wanted to do it too, but again, I didn’t think I would make it in time for the train back to Ljubljana that I needed. I had about 40 minutes until the tour at 11am, so I walked to the lookout point to have a look out. There was a guy doing some road work, and he stopped while I was there, but I felt bad so I took a few pictures and went back to the info center. I read a book for a while and then it was time to get ready for the tour. There were so many people on it. We all walked to the cave, which was about 5 or 10 minutes away, and then they separated us into two groups. There was a tour guide for Slovenian and English, and another for German and Italian.

The tour took us through two of the six kilometers of the cave system. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the cave, which was really disappointing, but it was so amazing to see it. It was so large inside. It wasn’t full of stalactites and stalagmites, like other caves I’ve seen, but it was just impressively enormous. There was a dry section of the cave and then the part where the river runs through the cave. We were high above it, and at one point had to cross a bridge over it. It was really spectacular to see. At the end of the cave we were allowed to take pictures of the opening, but it was not nearly as impressive as anything I’d seen inside. I walked back towards the info center but detoured towards the museum. A ticket for the museum is included with the cave tour. The museum was a bit of a hike away and spread over three buildings. The exhibits were actually tiny, but ok to see since I had some time before the next bus back to the train station. It was another hot day, so it was a nice break in 54 degree cave before this walk. I waited for the bus and saw the Japanese guys waiting as well. We headed back to Ljubljana together.



In Ljubljana I bought my train ticket to Zagreb. I tried to get a seat reservation for me and Tina, but the woman said they don’t do that for this train. I said I had a reservation for the train from Zagreb, but apparently they don’t do that the other direction. No problem. I headed back to my room to watch True Blood before Tina’s train go in. I got an email from her when I got back saying that she took an earlier train and was walking around town, and that if I didn’t hear from her before, we could still meet at the station at 6:30pm. So that’s what we did, it was good to see her. We went back to the hostel, snuck her in to my two bed room, and then went out to find some dinner. We ate at a café near the water and then walked around and got some ice cream. As you do. Tina ended up dropping one of her precariously placed balls of ice cream on the ground, sadly. But it was still tasty. We got to sleep quite late, staying up and chatting.

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