Skocjan caves
Skocjan cavesUNESCO World Heritage, this caves are a awesome travel in one underground canyon. They impress for its size, with the river running dozens of meters below you. You walk in a narrow path, carved in the rocky flanks of the river, with the ceiling of the cave also far from your head. It’s dark, with the artificial illumination strategically displayed and dimmed. The few usual formation (stalactites and stalagmites) are not impressive. As we walk, feeling smaller and helpless step after step, the light at the end of the tunnel, in the “dolina”, acquires a sense of hope, returning to human dimension and life.
The “dolina” is a wide hole, with a few small waterfalls and… green… splendid green, “pushing” you up to the surface and daylight. More than seeing, Skocjan caves are something to feel, and only feeling it you may clearly understand my words
Address: Matavun 12, 6215 Divaca, Slovenia
Website: Park
The caves
I visited this caves coming from Postojna, and the comparison is inevitable.
Well, Postojna is bigger and more beautiful, but bring not much to anyone who saw many beautiful caves than the size.
Skocjan is different: a first area also common, with the usual stalactites and stalagmites (Poor, indeed!) and a breathtaking second part – a subterranean canyon, 100 meters high, with vertiginous views and shades, and a river roaring somewhere below you.
It’s more than 2 km walking in “impossible” trails and slipping steps. A blessed fence assures that everything will end well. The end happens in a dolina. It’s, a natural incident where the canyon’s roof collapsed into the canyon, diverting the river and opening a large and deep well with trees saluting the sun.
Pictures inside are forbidden (a pity). Exiting is the moment to the photographers, trying to catch anything to remember the astonishing visit.
Address: Škocjan 2, 6215 Divaça, Slovenia
Website: Caves
Mahnik restaurant – Unique solution
Mahnik restaurant – Unique solution
For a restaurant without competition, in a top destination, I was expecting to pay… a lot of money. It didn’t happen – the meal was common, but cheap. The service was confuse, as was the space, with an empty dining room, an indoor esplanade with few people, and an outdoor one, were we sat, only with two or three occupied tables.
Strange thing, in a so visited place but I think that, the tourist operators, knowing that the visits the caves are scheduled each hour (and there’s nothing else to see or to do), bring the buses right on time, lunching elsewhere.
Only the self-driving tourist used the restaurant.
No photos in Skocjan
I don’t know why it’s forbidden to make pictures inside. As a matter of fact, pictures would be technically very difficult, with the dimmed light, the large distance to the subjects, and the wide area to cover.
Maybe they don’t want successive flashing to interfere with the planned illumination.
Pictures are free in the dolina, with the sunlight, but that has nothing to do with what we saw inside. In Postojna everybody violate the restrictions, here, no one even tried. Effects of the vertiginous sights?
