El Zorro: Balkans 5 The Postojna Caves 巴爾幹半島之行-5 布斯當娜鐘乳石洞)

After our walk-about, we were asked to reassemble at the Preseren Square

So I took a picture of other side of the square: it was full of stalls selling quick food, drinks etc.because it's the town centre with plenty of tourists just by the side of the most beautiful part of that town.

There was some kind of celebration, so you find a tall banner in front of the bank

We had to go back to where we came to wait for the coach: another view of the Congress Square

The Congress Building

We were driven to the Postojna Cave called Postojnska jama in Slovene, the second longest ( after the Migovec Cave System)in Slovenia with more than 20 KM of karst cave system, a cave created by the Pivka River. The cave has 3 levels and the deepest reaching to some 600 metres below ground and was first discovered in the 17th century by a German geologoist Johann Weikhard von Valvasor but in 1818, when the cave was being prepared for a visit by Emperor Francis I, the first Emperor of the Austria-Hungary, a new area of the cave was accidentally discovered by a local guide Luka Čeč, who served as guide for the Emperor. The following year, the Postojna Cave was open to the public. First they had to use torches to see the cave but in 1884, it was electrified. Since the middle of 19th century, it has been served by a cave train, originally hand-pushed, then driven by steam engine: the first ever sight-seeing cave train in Europe. During the 2nd world war, the Germans used part of the caves to store aircraft fuel but this project was sobotaged by Slovene guerillas who caused the oil barrels to be exploded but in the process, the explosion destroyed a part of the cave and led to a fire which burned for a whole week and blackened the cave entrance.Now more than 5.3 KM of the cave is open to the public. But first, we had to have lunch

Our restaurant next to the entrance to the cave

Lunch was a simple affair: just some salad

2 kinds of bread

A beer and some fish and chips

A Corner of our restaurant

After lunch we had to line up in front of the entrance to the cave

Waiting for our English guide to start the tour at a gathering spot after a 2 KM cave train journey during which we had our first "taste" of the interior of the cave.

What I like about this cave is that,unlike some of the caves in the PRC, it was not lit with lurid colors like green, red, purple, blue etc, just some simple yellow light. It gives the tour a much more "natural" feel. In one of the underground "halls", called the "hall of the organs", the acoustics is so good and even a loud whisper from any spot can be clearly heard at every part of that "hall" and perhaps for that reason, concerts are held there from time to time.

Each of the viewing points was fitted with a PA system in which we can listen to what the guide was introducing without using a headphone.

Here we find the stalactites forming at the cracks of the rocks

The cave was quite deep

There were all kinds of formations each with slightly different colorings depending on the minerals present: green if there's copper, red if there's iron and black if there's manganese.

Some cheese cloth curtains with moss growing on the under surface of the rocks

One can see some "spaghetti" forming

Full of "spaghetti"

Some of them seem to have been attacked by moulds or is it just manganese?

Some human faces

An altar?

A hall of pillars

You can see the water dripping

Chinese ginseng!

Inter-connected caves

Suspended rocks?

I was wondering when it will break, its bottom so much heavier than its "waist"!

Dripping with milk or cream?

The departure hall. But before we left, we got the chance to see a very unique creature: one that hasn't changed in the last million years because it lives in complete darkness, isolated from the outside world, completely undisturbed by other animals or fishes: it's an amphibian with legs and a primitive lung which moves extremely slowly: the Proteus.