Slovenian Caves
I thought I’d change how I’ve been doing this blog. I’m going to start picking a single photo from the previous week and writing more in depth about that photo instead of describing everything I’ve been up to. First up is a photo from Predjama Castle — the world’s largest castle inside a cave.
The village the castle is named for literally means ‘Before-Cave’ — ‘Pred-Jama’. It was first constructed in the 13th century, and then added to over the years to form its current incarnation dating from the 16th century.
It is most famous for being home to Erazem, a robber baron, in the 1400’s. He got into a spat with the kingdom of Hungary, which led to a siege of the castle. It is a difficult castle to besiege — not only is there a fresh water supply, ingeniously collected from the cavern walls via a system of niches and pipes, but there are secret ways through the cave in order to obtain fresh food. Legend has it that he poured scorn on his enemies by raining fresh cherries down on to them. Unfortunately, his downfall came after a year of holding out when he was betrayed by a servant. He revealed that the weakest point of the castle was the toilet (the furthest left point in the photo), and let the Hungarians know when Erazem was there. One accurately catapulted stone later and that was that.
Slovenia is home to plenty of limestone caves — in fact the word ‘karst’ comes from there. Close to Predjama are the Postojna Caves, full of enormous stalagmites, stalactites and an underground train to take you around. There are also the Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO site. These are the third largest in the world (I think behind those in Vietnam), at around 6km long. It’s mind-boggling to walk alongside the rushing River Reka (River River) and cross its 140m high gorge all while underground.
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