Skocjan Caves: Best Ever. Period.

With all the limestone around, there are indeed some caves in this part of the world. (Seems like our whole summer has been about limestone). Anyhow, from among the choices in Slovenia, we chose the Skocjan Caves. At Skocjan, you walk through with a guide (and in English too), it's mildly strenuous but well-lit and carefully paved. In Postojna, the main alterative, you mostly ride a train through the cave. But the big difference is in what you see. Postojna has more and more varied stalagmites and stalactites and friends, but Skocjan has the giant cavern--actually an underground canyon still being formed by the river Reka, which travels, underground, more than 30k from Skocjan to Italy and the Adriatic. We've seen some caves...Mammouth, Carlsbad, Wind, New Zealand, the Three River Gorge caves in China...but Skocjan is hands-down and far-away the best. Pix can only begin to convey the immensity, the sublimity...all with the raging Reka a couple hundred feet below. Best ever. Period.

Complicating the narrative a bit: the tour enters the cave from the back, upper side, the so-called "quiet" cave, and proceeds up-river into the "noisy" cave and its natural entrance. This saves the drama of the underground canyon for the last. Further, no fotos are permitted, and the lighting--huge darkness illuminated by spotlights--argues against all but the best photographers and cameras, among which, alas, I and my back-up camera do not figure. So I have merely snagged a few off the web.

Yes, another World Heritage Site

Our tour guide, very knowledgeable, very patient; the large group is divided
into one Slovenian and two English language groups: not that there are so many
Brits, Canucks, Kiwis, Ozzies, or Yanks; rather, no matter what your first language
is, your second language is English....in today's world

Perhaps the best of the interpretive stuff

And off we go...this is the only pic I took that came out...so we'll cut to the
snagged pix...

A wide-angle showing the abundance of stalactites, stalagmites, etc.

Thus

Enormous pans, the likes of which we last saw, with water in them, at Pamukkale,
Phrygia, Turkey

And now, into the canyon, the river roaring below; the pix can give just a hint...

The bridge at Khazad Dum, as Vicki says...

Lighted path through...

One of the more incredible sights we have beheld

Leaving the cave now, by its original "entrance"

We wandered about outside the cave for a bit; here, some
of the earlier touristic steps

Below, where the river disappears underground,
into the cave, for 34k

Other enormous caves

Disappearing river

The constant 12 degrees Celsius at the cave mouth means Mediterranean plants
like  this fern can survive through the winter

Funicular back to the top of the mountain

Looking across the gorge to the town of Skocjan

And now in the museum, mostly about the early explorations

Helpful model #356,946; interestingly, Skocjan is a World Heritage Site not
merely because it is so stupendous but because much of the international scientific
terminology of karst regions, and caves, originated here; anyhow, best ever. Period.