Monday, August 29- Opatija to Ljubljana; Postojna Caves

 Another early-morning start (7:30), another country.  Our first destination would be the Postojna caves after we crossed the border into Slovenia. 

Passport stamps had been hit-or-miss on this trip.  I love having them as mementos of my destinations but with more open borders in the EU and computerized record-keeping they’re becoming rarer.  Sometimes they just scan your passport.  We entered and exited Croatia twice and they stamped our passports every time except when we exited Slovenia, but Slovenia stamped them on entry.

On the way, our guide played the Slovenian national anthem.  Unlike most national anthems which glorify conquests and boast about the greatness of the motherland, this one expressed a desire for peace and love among all nations.  Slovenia had declared its independence early and had been spared most of the trauma of the war in the early 1990s.  It was heartwarming after everything we’d heard about the history of the Balkans.  We need more national anthems like that.

The caves were amazing.  It’s a huge system and we saw only a fraction of it but they’ve been tourist attractions for over 200 years.  We’d been warned the caves were cold. They were.  We took a 10-minute train into the area and then walked around.  The formations were amazing because they varied so much- not just stalactites and stalagmites but some that looked like draped cloths, some that almost looked like monsters, some that developed over hundreds or thousands of years on top of fallen stalactites.  They told us that the formations grew by only 1 cm/year.  Everything was well fenced-off so that no one could touch anything but it was all skillfully lit, highlighting some of the most interesting formations. 

The cave is home to an odd creature called the olm.  It looks like a small lizard but it’s pink and has no eyes.  There was a tank of them we could see but it was very dimly lit and of course flash photos (the only kind that would work) were forbidden.  They told us that during COVID the olms reproduced far more than usual, which makes one wonder about the impact of all the visitors even though they limit the number per hour and don’t allow anyone off the paths.  This picture is from a poster.

Souvenir shops proliferated.  Many of the stuffed toys were in the form of olms.  I wouldn’t buy them for a child; I think it would scare the heck out of them.  I did buy a nice geode and (of course) a refrigerator magnet.

We took trains in and out of the mountain.  It was COLD in there!

We arrived in Ljubljana a little later.  We walked into the city center for a tour with a local guide.  One unexpected discovery for me was the fact that Gustav Mahler had studied at the Philharmonic Academy in Ljubljana for 4 years.  We passed that building as well as the one where he’d lived, which had a small bust of him near a window.  Ron adored Mahler.  I wasn’t that crazy about his music but loved to watch Ron enjoy it.  Well, now I knew where to leave some of his ashes- right on the threshold of the Academy.

Some in our group decided they were craving a good burger for dinner.  I’m not into burgers but joined them and had a Kmecki (Slovenian for “peasant”) burger, which was a mix of sausage and beef, topped with cabbage salad and horseradish and accompanied by beer.