March 15th, 2026
This is a new port for us. Slovenia is a relatively new country. It declared its independence in 1991. It is a small country and has a population of 2 million and is roughly the size of New Jersey. It has 3 major cities. Today we had a ship’s tour to go to both a cave and a castle built into the rock. We had a nice drive into the country side before getting to Postojna Cave which is Slovenia’s top attraction. It is the 2nd longest cave system in Slovenia and is 15 miles long.
The entrance to the cave and the first 3.5km are done on a train.
Once you get off the train you walk another 1.5 kms along paths that are wet and dark, sloping up & down.
The caves are also home to the endemic olm, the largest troglodytic amphibian in the world. They look like white salamanders and they can live up to 100 years. They refer to them as the cave dragons and all the gift shops sell stuffed ones. They are very rare and while there is an aquarium in the cave that supposedly has olms in it but we did not see them. they are mostly blind & their skin is sensitive to light so it was very dark.
It is a constant 50 degrees in the cave and they said 100% humidity but you did not notice the humidity with it being cool. You were constantly getting dripped on. We spent about 3 hours in the cave and the cave also has the world’s only underground post office. At the end is a gift shop and then you take the train back out. It was a very cool experience. During World War II the Nazis used the cave to store 100s of gallons of airplane fuel. one of the bridges was even built by POW’s.
After the cave we went to the hotel at the cave and had lunch. After lunch we drove another 30 minutes to Predjama Castle. The castle dates back to 1274 and is a site to see.
It is built into the side of a huge cliff face. It has a moat and a drawbridge and the castle once kept invaders out for over a year. They had holes in the floor that you could poor boring oil down on any invaders trying to cross the bridge. It also had a dungeon that looked pretty creepy. You could walk around the castle but some of the stairs were quite steep.
The castle looks down on a very picturesque valley.
The excursion was an all day excursion so we made it back to the boat after 5pm so no time to walk around the town. We decided to start packing after dinner and we wanted to go to the dining room to say goodbye to some of the staff.
All luggage had to be in the hall by 10pm so after dinner we went and used up the rest of our shipboard credit in the gift shop on board and then back to the room to start packing. At 9pm we went down to Torshaven to say goodbye to Aaron. We had some drinks, which Aaron did not charge us for, and said our goodbyes but hopefully we will sail with him again. We had the luggage out by 10 and set the alarm for 7am. We must vacate the cabin by 8:00.
We have to say we are not used to such a short cruise and don’t know how we used to do them. Seems like we just got on board and now it is time to leave.
Tomorrow is Venice where we will stay for 3 days with Linda & Michael before flying home on Thursday.
Perfect sunset to end the cruise.