How to Visit Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle in Slovenia
One of the hidden gems in Slovenia is Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle. As such, you’ll want to plan a day while you’re in the region to go explore these natural wonders.
The Postojna Cave System is a 24,120 meter long cave system carved by the Pivka River. It is the second longest cave system and one of the top tourism sites in Slovenia. Visiting it is unique in that you can take an underground train into this subterranean paradise.
Located just 9 kilometers from Postojna Caves is Predjama Castle. This Renaissance castle is famous for being built into the mouth of a cave in Slovenia. In fact, it is the largest cave castle in the world! This makes it unique in that underneath the castle there is a network of secret tunnels.
Let’s take a look at how you can visit Postojna for both the Caves and Predjama Castle.
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How to Visit the Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle
The remote location of the Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle make it a challenge to get there if you don’t have a car. However, there are many cities you can use as your home base to visit Postojna.
Day Trip from Ljubljana to Postojna
Ljubljana, Slovenia is one of the most common places to use as a base when visiting Postojna. It’s a simple 30 minute drive or 1 hour bus or train ride. Alternatively, there are plenty of day trip options to take all the logistics out of traveling to Postojna from Ljubljana.
Day Trip from Trieste to Postojna
Another common place to visit Postojna from is Trieste, Italy. If you want to make this journey, it is only a 30 minute drive or will take about an hour and a half by train. The easiest way to make this trip is to book a day trip to Postojna from Trieste.
Day Trip from Bled to Postojna
While the drive from Bled to Postojna is only about an hour, public transit will be a bit more of a challenge as it typically will take you through Ljubljana. This makes the train or bus journey closer to a 3 – 4 hour trip each way. Because of that, if you don’t have a car, it’s best to opt to spring for a taxi or do a day trip to Postojna from Bled.
Day Trip rom Zagreb to Postojna
Another possible launching point to visit Predjama Castle and Postojna Caves is Zagreb, Croatia. The direct drive is under 2 hours but taking public transit will take 3 – 4 hours each way. If you want to make this trip, plan to take a day trip to Postojna from Zagreb.
Other Key Jumping Off Points for Postojna
There are endless place you can use as your home base to reach the Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle. Choose from day trips from:
What Visiting the Postojna Caves is Really Like
While in Ljubljana, I ventured to the center of the universe in Postojna. Okay, it’s not really the center of the universe, but it certainly seemed like it.
Making My Way from Ljubljana to the Postojna Caves
My adventure to Postojna started with an early bus ride from Ljubljana to Postojna. Upon arrival, I made my way to the Tourist Information Center to find a map to guide my way to the Postojna Caves.
Upon arriving, the lady at Tourist Information not only gave me a map pointing me in the correct direction, but she also waded through the ticket information with me. Within five minutes, off I went, ticket in hand!
Arriving at the Postojna Caves
A short 15 minute walk from downtown Postojna, and I arrived at the Cave Entrance with plenty of time to spare before the tour start time. This gave me time to explore the shops and restaurants.
It seems like all natural wonders these days are dressed up with ways to part tourists from their money. And in general they work as you see the groups headed in and out, bags in hand!
Touring Postojna Caves
At 11am I headed into the caves with the English tour group. Unfortunately, the tour group was large as anyone who didn’t speak Slovenia, German, or French was part of the English group.
The tour starts with a train ride through the caves. The ride itself is cool in that you go through a few kilometers of the caves seeing all of the crazy rock formations, but it’s also somewhat cheesy because you feel kind of like you’re on a ride at Disney World. Upon reaching the end of the train ride, you continue deeper into the cave on foot.
Walking through the cave provides far more ability to take in the detailed cave walls and ceilings and makes you feel very insignificant as compared to the large-scale of chambers you walk through.
It was pretty awe-inspiring. Especially to hear about how they discovered the cave and then would climb through crevices to find additional parts of the cave. In this manner it was discovered that the Postojna Caves are some of the largest caves in the world!
At the end of the on foot tour there is a small aquarium showing cave dwelling animals that look somewhat like tiny alligators or water geckos. They have their eyes completely covered by skin due to the lack of need in a dark cave setting.
After a bit of walking, about 1km, we returned to the train for the ride out. Overall, the Postojna Caves are astounding! The sheer size, detail, and ability to put a train in a cave, are amazing. On the other hand, they have taken a naturally beautiful place and made it a tourist location, which decreases the charm to me. However, it avoids the need to go spelunking :). All in all, it is 100% worth going.
Other Things to Know about Visiting Postojna
Another key site in Postojna is Predjama Castle due to its unique location sitting at the mouth of the caves. Most tours to Postojna will include both the caves and the castle, but if you are using public transit to get to Postojna, you will need to take a taxi from Postojna Caves to Predjama Castle as they do sit about 10 kilometers apart.
Fun fact: Slovenia is a fairly small country with only about 2,060,000 people but over 11,000 caves. How crazy is that?
For more information about the Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle check out 2 Day Trips from Ljubljana.
