Slovenia
I had heard much about the wild beauty of Slovenia, its forests, sunny meadows, alpine pastures and green hills. Since it was only about a couple of hours away from Vrsar, I planned a day trip to the Postojna caves. We drove through miles and miles of stunning landscapes and picturesque vistas of rolling hills, lakes, mountains of pine trees punctuated only by far away small towns. Karst cave systems always leave me in awe with their grandeur & ageless beauty…Postojna caves, is 2 million years old & the enormous formations take your breath away with its infinite shapes, colors and variety. There is a little train that takes visitors about 3.5kms into the caves and the rest of the tour is on foot. The temperature is 8 degrees centigrade inside the caves, luckily we were fair warned and we went prepared. We got to walk around and see a vast array of stalactites shaped like needles, icicles and even fragile spaghetti. The stalagmites take familiar shapes but there are also peculiar columns, pillars and translucent curtains that look like silk scarves. One of the most jaw dropping sights is the enormous concert hall, inside the caves…it is so large that it can accommodate 10,000 people. Music concerts and other performances are held through out the year! I came away imagining the electrifying experience it would make to be a spectator in one of those concerts.
After the tour, we drove to the Predjama castle. The castle built inside a rocky cavern so as to be inaccessible to enemies was built by the patriarch of Aquileia in the Gothic style. Predjama is replete with legend as much as it is with secret passageways. It was built in the 11th century and was made famous by a rebellious knight called Erazem Lueger. Erazem hid in the castle while trying to escape the Holy Roman Empire. The soldiers tried to break in but the treacherous terrain around kept them at bay. Erazem held out against them for a year, all the while living comfortably in the impregnable castle. The frustrated Roman soldiers thought they’d starve him to death. They didn’t succeed at that either because he used a secret tunnel that led to one of the neighboring villages to buy supplies for him and his men. Erazem would taunt the soldiers by throwing cherries at them from his safe spot. The weakest point was the toilet built on the top floor. The Roman soldiers bribed one of his servants and told him to give them a signal when his master visited the loo. So one day when Erazem was doing his business, completely unaware that the burning candle in the window was a signal to the Romans, a canon was launched and took him out in one shot…literally with his pants down!! To top it all off, in 1991, while working in the cellars, restoration workers discovered buried treasure from the 16th century. How cool is that???
There was still much to experience in Slovenia like the famed wine routes, Ljubljana, Lake Bled, Julian Alps etc…I saved them for my next visit to Slovenia and settled in for the return trip. As we drove back, the setting sun lit the sky on fire & washed the countryside with an amber glow. The swaying meadows and open fields with neatly stacked bales of hay was the last thing I remember seeing before my eyelids closed reluctantly for a nap.
