In fact, they have three: two city-wide networks, plus their own (take note, France!).įrom M- I learn that Slovenians are not too keen on the Italians. When I ask a cafe if it has wifi, I receive a look of hurt incredulity. What I find is an attractive, bustling, modern metropolis.
I arrive harbouring some impressively uninformed preconceptions, and am expecting something rather forlorn and hopeless some kind of drab embodiment of post-Communist disenchantment, with wisps of grey at the temples. As I’m wondering if he’s the ‘most superlative’ guide the caves have to offer, we happen upon ‘the most beautiful stalagmite’ – and, to give him his due, it probably is (see pic).įrom Postojna, I make my way to Ljubljana, the capital. We are, at various points, at the ‘highest point’ of the tour, and the ‘lowest point’ at the ‘thickest part’ of the roof, and the ‘thinnest part’. Our guide keeps me focused with a flow of excitable superlatives, however. If the place is a giant Rorschach test, then I think I have problems. I also spot several goblins and monkeys, and phalluses everywhere.
I see a chicken down here, as well as two pteradactyls and a camel. Stalagmites, formed from dissolved calcite dripping from the ceiling, are testament to its dogged patience, growing just one inch in 40 years. There’s also water everywhere, ebbing and flowing, carving and eroding. There’s the cute if hapless troglodytic olm, for a start: a ‘neotenic’ creature that keeps most of its juvenile features into adulthood, and with which I can’t help feeling a natural affinity.
#ALPUS AND DANGEROUS FOREST TRANSLATED SKIN#
It’s a macabre lair, the landscape a taut cadaver skin of rock draped on rock. Inside, however, they are breathtaking: a vast, craggy Hades of stalagmites and stalactites, formed three million years ago by the Plivka river (see pics). Outside, they prove to be a disappointment, surrounded by the usual glut of tawdry tripe that infects most popular tourist attractions. My first stop in Slovenia is Postojna, where I deposit my things in a campsite so I can walk to the famous caves nearby. Traditional crimson-roofed Slovenian church.
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