Ljubljana, Day 2

Our second day in Slovenia we took a day trip to a castle and a cave system. It was really foggy this morning, but the dragon in the fog was pretty cool looking.

We drove an hour to the Postojnska caves. We had a time reservation for 10:00, so we made sure to get there at least a few minutes early.

To get to the cave tour we took a train ride through the caves. We saw lots of cool structures and Willow was entranced. She loved the train ride and during the rest of the tour kept asking when we could go back on the train!

I couldn’t pick just a few pictures of the caves, they were all so amazing! Apparently the lights are usually just white, not colored, but between Christmas and New Years is a living nativity scene in the caves and they were getting ready for that. So they had the colored lights up in the caves in preparation, and we were really lucky to get to experience the colored lights. I have done quite a bit of cavern tours and ‘off-road’ spelunking, but this may have been one of the best cave experiences I’ve had due to the colored lights.

At the end of the tour (before we got back on the train) there was a big blue lighted Christmas tree and a reindeer with sleigh to take pictures with. The kids loved the caves, and I am really glad we went.

Beside the caves was an underground animal exhibit, which was a paid exhibit but the guy let us in anyway without a fee! There were more caves, and exhibits of different animals that live in caves. Most of them were only a centimeter or two long, and it was hard to find them in the exhibits. The kids absolutely loves the olm, the little pale pink salamander that is a cave dweller that only lives in the Balkans. They were pretty cute, but I couldn’t get a good picture.

There was an area of the cave covered with graffiti signatures from the 1800s. Graffiti is definitely not a new thing.

There was no snow on the roads or anything, but there were piles of snow on the corners and in the midways of the streets. The kids got to play on the snow piles, and even made a tiny snowman! They also got a picture of this wooden guy, who was pretty cool.

Our next stop was a 20 minute drive to the Predjama Castle, which is actually built into a mountain! I love all these pictures of the castle because it is so unique.

And a rare photo of JonPaul and me. It was cold, but the sun was out which made it bearable.

There are lots of photos of the castle. There was a drawbridge, which the kids always love. The view across the valley was beautiful, especially with the pine trees and the snow and the bright blue sky. Such a difference from Ljubljana, where it was super foggy. I liked seeing how the castle walls meld into the rock, with a smooth surface next to a rough one. The kids looked over into the torture chamber, where a guy was strung up and several torture instruments were on display. The top part of the castle goes into an actual cave, where the residents could hide if needed. The cave system is actually quite large and there was a secret tunnel to escape to the outside. That is how the castle got supplies when they were under siege, as told in the legend of Erasmus, the robber baron.

Beside the castle was a taxidermy exhibit, which the kids had mixed feelings about. They liked seeing all the animals, but didn’t like that they were killed! Ronin fell asleep on the hour and a half drive back to Ljubljana, and Willow was well on her way. Zoey gets the short end of the deal being in the middle; both kids seem to want to lay on her! Once back in Ljubljana, we went to the town hall and to see the Ljubljana Cathedral, which had a really cool door. However, there was a price to enter, and it was a little costly for our family of five, particularly when we had been into two free churches in Ljubljana already.

We went to eat at a restaurant called Pop’s Place, which was amazing! There were only four tables inside and a bunch outside, but it was freezing outside and I was glad we got to sit inside. The kids had a little windowsill to play on while we waited for our food, and we have gotten into the habit of letting the kids bring two small toys each to play with on our travels. Anyway, the restaurant served burgers, and we have had a lot of good burgers here, but not good burger meat. The stuff on top of the burger and the bread is usually fabulous, but the meat is rubbery and just not good. However, at Pop’s Place the meat was really good, cooked just right, and also had yummy toppings. The sweet potato fries were amazing too! When we left we gave them a Kentucky magnet I had made to put on their wall of magnets, so we are represented in Ljubljana! Walking back to the hotel, I got a better picture of the castle with the lights even though it was still pretty foggy.