Postojna Caves

Postojna, the most famous caves

Anyone deciding to go to Croatia by car, entering from the North, should consider the idea of slightly lengthening the route to visit the Postojna caves, because besides being enormous and rightly famous, they are also very beautiful and distinctive.

The cave is 20 km long, although the visitable kilometers are far fewer.

You visit it by means of a little train that goes about 4 km into the caves, then with a pleasant walk on foot that lets you admire an endless series of spectacular formations. The whole visit lasts about 1 hour and 30 minutes (an hour of walking).

Visit:

During the train ride (it almost feels like being on a Gardaland attraction, with the train speeding through the caves, and in some points through very narrow passages), you observe the Hall of Congress (or ballroom), which was in fact used on special occasions for dance evenings.

Then, continuing on foot with the guide who speaks Italian, you come to an underground mountain 45 meters high that you climb via a stepped path. Once you reach the top, you get a beautiful view of this part of the cave, and the bizarre shapes of the formations leave room for the imagination. You continue downhill, crossing the Russian Bridge, which lets you cross a deep chasm and admire the suggestive Hall of Spaghetti, where hundreds of very fine formations hang down from the ceiling and recall our national dish. Toward the end of the route comes the famous Brilliant, the symbol of the caves, a very white and very tall formation. The last hall you encounter, before the return outside by train, is the magnificent concert hall, so called because concerts were performed here even by masters of the caliber of Mascagni, thanks to the magnificent acoustics of the hall.

The caves can be reached from Trieste via an entirely highway route (about 40 minutes). Admission about 13 euros per person, plus the cost of parking the car (2 euros). In summer, visits are every hour from 9 to 18.

Keep in mind the temperature, constant at 8 degrees both in winter and summer, so you need to dress adequately.