Road Trip Skocjan Caves and Predjama Castle

September 28, 2015

A road trip is always great fun and Slovenia is no exception.

A small country with good roads makes Slovenia very accessible for a road trip, even when you are driving on the “wrong” side of the road. You can drive from one end to another in a few hours; just don’t forget your vignette for the tolls, which can be organised with the car hire company.

Our two stops on this road trip were the Predjama Castle and the Skocjan Caves. Knowing it would take a few hours to explore the caves and having our end destination in mind, we left Ljubljana early the next morning and drove to the Predjama Castle.

The Predjama Castle

The castle is only about one hour drive from Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana and 11 kms from the town of Postojna. It is a renaissance castle impressively built into the mouth of a cave in 1274. It has had several owners over the years with the last being a German family up until the end of WWII when it became a museum. Having read reviews of the castle and being short on time, we decided it was definitely worth the drive to see but opted out of the museum tour. Leaving more time to for our next stop…

The Skocjan Caves

There are two impressive caves in this region, the Skocjan Caves and the Postojna Caves. Again, it comes down to time and interest. The Postojna cave is the”best known cave in the world” and the only cave with a double track railway – great for kids and adults. But we decided on the incredible and less touristy UNESCO Skocjan Caves, located approx 30 minutes from the Predjama Castle.

The Skocjan Caves are one of the largest known underground canyons in the world and was listed as a UNESCO site in 1986. The Reka River flows through the caves and is approximately 3.5 km long, 10 to 60 m wide and over 140 m high, making it the largest discovered underground channel in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

There are 3 tours to choose from. 1 – Through the underground canyon, 2 – The Reka River underground, 3- the Skocjan Education Trail (which is the newest tour).

With only a few hours to spare, we decided in advance on Tour 1 and aimed to arrive for the start of the 11am tour which goes for 1 hr 45minutes. The caves are seriously impressive. I have seen a few amazing caves full of stalactites and stalagmites but nothing to this standard. The only downfall is not being allowed to take photographs until the very end. All you need to do is google “Skocjan Caves Bridge” and you will see what you are in for – Something out of Indiana Jones.