Ljubljana and Postonja Caves

Monday June 12th

Ljubljana and Postonja Caves

Today didn't start well with no coach to take us to Ljubljana- the driver had misread an email cancelling our trip from Bled Station to the hotel on Saturday (since we had been obliged to take the coach from Schwarzach St Veit in Austria as trains were running no further than there because of engineering work.) He assumed we weren't coming at all, so he didn't turn up today either!

Fortunately, our efficient tour manager managed to contact him so he arrived about 45 minutes late and we were soon on our way to Ljubljana. It was motorway all the way, in a flat valley at the foot of the mountains.

We had a tour guide in Ljubljana, who explained some of the history of the town. The original city, called Aemona, was founded by Rome in around 50 BC. There are the remains of a Roman wall, apparently, which we didn't have time to see. After the fall of Rome, it isn't very clear what happened to the city, as the next written records date to the middle of the 12th century. 

The medieval city suffered an earthquake in 1511, so parts were rebuilt in Renaissance style, whose influence you can still see today. Later, in the middle and the second half of the 17th century, foreign architects built and renovated numerous monasteries, churches, and palaces and introduced Baroque architecture; a number of these buildings still remain. 

There was another earthquake in 1895, after which parts of the city were rebuilt in Art Nouveau style. You can still see these influences around the city today, indeed we began our tour in the Art Nouveau area, which is really just one street. We saw the first building in that style, which influenced others. 

It is bright pink, and the windows are outlined with shapes in blue, terracotta and pale orange. It's not the sort of building you could miss! Nearby was another, rather more restrained, in cream with blue tiles.

The street led down to the central Square, Preseren Square, which is dominated by the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, built in the 17th century in the Baroque style. I'll explain the trees later!

This is the beginning of the Baroque part of the city. The Square is also used for art installations and the one there at present is a representation of Ljubljana weather, so it sprays water out from time to time. It was hard to hear our tour guide because there a large group of primary school children were running through it to get cool and screaming with delight!

There is also a statue of the Slovene national poet Preseren. He is holding a book which represents his most famous poem, the seventh stanza of which is used for the Slovene national anthem. 

Our guide told us a lovely story about the statue, which stands near the Franciscan church, and also shows his muse above his figure, symbolically inspiring him. She was a lady called Julia whom he couldn't marry because she was too rich and aristocratic, but he wrote a lot of love poetry because of her. Her statue is wearing very little. Apparently, the women of Ljubljana complained that it wasn't fitting that the first thing a man would see on coming out of the church was a naked lady. So the city fathers planted trees so the statue couldn't be seen from the church!

We walked down other streets of beautiful old buildings and arrived at Congress Square, an important square which was built in 1821 for ceremonial purposes such as the Congress of Ljubljana after which it was named. Since then it has become an important center for political ceremonies, demonstrations and protests, such as the ceremony of the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, or the protests against Yugoslav authority in 1988 etc. It also houses several important buildings, such as the Philharmonic Hall and and Ljubljana university. 

This Neo-Renaissance University building used to be the governor's palace, but became the university in 1919. 

We crossed the river Ljubljanica on Cobblers' Bridge, (so called because in the medieval period there were cobblers booths there) and one of our party remarked on the fact that many of the old buildings had been beautifully renovated but there was one close to the bridge which was in a dreadful state of disrepair. 

Our guide explained that, at the end of the soviet era, the government decided to give back the buildings which had been taken away from the original owners in socialist times. However, in order to get the buildings back, the families of the original owners had to produce adequate documentation to show that they had really owned them. In some cases, this documentation did not exist, and while arguments raged about who the owners were, nobody was inclined to pay for restoration and renovation. 

We passed on to Town Square, which is dominated by the Town Hall. The original building was built in a Gothic style in 1484, but between 1717 and 1719 it underwent a Baroque renovation with a Venetian inspiration. This building is adorned with dragons, which have become the symbol of Ljubljana, possibly because of the city's association with St George. Nearby is a Baroque fountain by Francesco Robba, a Venetian who lived in Ljubljana at the time. It has Carrara marble figures representing river gods.

Also nearby is Ljubljana Cathedral or St. Nicholas's Cathedral. It is easily identifiable because of its green dome and twin towers, which I did not photograph because I was concentrating on its bronze doors and the fresco on the front of it. This Baroque building was designed in 1701, though the dome was not added until more than 100 years later. 

The cathedral is close to Ljubljana Central Market and we admired the beautiful fruit and vegetables there. 

There are also public scales so you can check the weight of the produce you have bought, and a wonderful enormous fresh milk machine. You can bring your own bottle or pay for one of their plastic ones, and apparently the milk is so fresh that it was rumoured, when it was installed, that there was a real cow inside!

We crossed Butcher's bridge, adorned these days with hundreds of love locks, and made our way back to Preseren Square, where our tour ended. 

Our guide had recommended a cafe of the 12th floor of a building called Nebotičnik, which translates as The Skyscraper, so we made that our lunch time visit. It was very inexpensive and there were good views from the terrace.

I was able to get a good photo of Ljubljana castle, a medieval castle originally built in the 12th century which has Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance architectural elements as it evolved over the centuries. There is a funicular to get up there, but unfortunately we didn't have time as we had to get back to the coach to set off for the Postonja Caves.

An hour's journey in the coach took us to the village of Postonja where the caves are situated. These limestone caves were carved by the Pivka River over millions of years, and are quite damp and drippy inside.

When you first go in, you have to put on a jumper, because it really is very cold. You get onto a little train and it transports you deep underground in a ride that takes about 10 minutes. Then you get out and walk. The whole cave system is almost 25 km, and you see about 5 of them, admiring the formations. There are stalagmites, stalactites, and formations called curtains or draperies that look like folded curtains. 

Some of the oldest pillars are over 350 thousand years old and are still developing, so you mustn't touch them. There are non-slip concrete walkways with metal railings, because the slopes up and down are very steep and we walked quite fast. In one section, there is a narrow bridge over quite a deep chasm. The bridge is called the Russian Bridge because it was build by Russian prisoners of war during the First World War.

You pass a completely white stalagmite called the Brilliant  (also sometimes called the Diamond) and the neighbouring baroque pillar, which have become symbols of the cave. 

Above that, in a darkened fish tank, you are able to look at some of the olms, a cave salamander. Because they live in a completely dark environment in a cave which normally has no light, they are colourless and blind, and can live to over 100 years old. No photos are allowed, unfortunately. If you really want to, you can buy a soft toy version in one of the souvenir shops!

You then enter the Concert Hall, which is the largest in the cave system and can accommodate 10,000 people for musical performances. Our guide invited any of our group to sing, but nobody volunteered! 

After that, you get back onto the little train and it takes you back to the entrance. I stopped to ask the guide if there had ever been any humans living there. She told me no remains had ever been discovered, possibly because the original entrance was so low, long and narrow and the interior was so very cold and damp it wouldn't have appeared very attractive. Few animal remains were found either, possibly for the same reason. The bones of a cave bear found might have belonged to one who got lost by mistake.

This conversation took so long that I was locked in the cave by mistake. I don't know where the guide went, but the woman who locks the gates had already locked them before she met me scuttling about trying to find the entrance. We were the last group of the day and she thought we had all gone. I was quite glad to get back to the coach!