Today we had to get up a little earlier since we had to be out of the hotel by 10. We went down to breakfast where people were pushing and fighting over the food, as if they hadn't eaten in months. I thought they were the tour group from Ukraine, but Lonnie thought they were some others from Italy that were not with the tour group. Whoever it was, it was really bad. Lonnie didn't eat much of anything except some strawberry yogurt. I had muesli with yogurt and hot chocolate. Both Croatia and Slovenia make their hot chocolate very dark. I had to add milk to it. The milk here is more like Pet Milk.
After eating, we checked out and drove down the street to the Postojna Cave. We purchased our tickets and got in line for the train ride. I was thankful that I had my coat. Caves are usually cool anyway, but as fast as the little train was going, it was freezing.
Lonnie tried to take pictures, but the little train was moving so fast that he could not get them. We finally got to an area where we did the walking tour.
When we got off of the little train, there was a sign that said "no photography". We quickly found that no one paid any attention to the sign or the guide who told us the same thing. The guide didn't really care as long as we kept up. He was literally running up and down the mountain inside the cave. There was no way that I could do that, and there was a lady with a cane who was having even more trouble than me. I told her we would catch up eventually, and she replied that this was the only time she would ever be there and she wanted to see it! She was right. After that, I didn't worry as much about keeping up. Whenever the guide stopped to talk, we usually caught up about the time he was finishing and ready to move on.
The cave was absolutely beautiful. Being married to a spelunker, I have been in a lot of commercial caves and some wild ones. This cave is by far the prettiest that I have seen. There were so many formations that they had to carve a path through them. Afterwards we went to a cave-life exhibit where we saw a blind salamander known as Proteus. We also saw microscopic snails and other bugs, cave crickets, and cave shrimp (also microscopic). It was very interesting.
After the cave tour and lunch, we drove to a nearby town where they were supposed to have Lippizan stallions. Since it was raining so hard, we only saw three older ones in the field.
Then it was on to Ljublanja to check out the town. Since it was still raining really hard, it was hard to see. We decided to drive on to Lake Bled.
We arrived at Bled around dark. We read through the recommendations in Rick Steves' Eastern European book and chose to stay at the Meyer Pension. It was a good choice. Unfortunately, their restaurant was not open yet because it is still the shoulder season. The owner sent us down the hill next to the lake to eat. The food was just okay, but the servers were very nice.
After the meal, we had a very interesting conversation with the waitress. She was explaining things about Slovenia to us. I was going to ask how it was being in the EU, but she volunteered the information before I asked. She feels that joining the EU was a bad thing for the country. I am not surprised.
Once again it was midnight before we got to bed. We plan to spend the next four nights in Salzburg to catch our breath before the last half of our trip.
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