Posted by Postojna is a small town in the west of Slovenia. It is located on the A1 motorway about halfway between the capital Ljubljana and Koper on the short coast of Slovenia. Ljubljana and Koper are both about 50 km away.
The town of Postojna is nothing special. Nevertheless, about a million tourists come here every year. The only reason is a cave. Postojna Cave is one of the most visited caves in the world.
Description of Postojna Cave
The world-famous cave is about 1 km from the centre of Postojna and 1.5 km from the railway station. With a total length of 16.5 km, it is one of the largest caves in Europe. The underground river Pivka flows through the cave. Visitors can mainly see the higher parts of Postojna Cave. The deeper passages are filled with the water of the river and are therefore not accessible. Tourists see about 6 kilometres of the passages. You don’t walk all of it. The first 4.5 kilometres are travelled by an underground electric train, after that it is 1.5 kilometres on foot.
Day trips to Postojna Cave: The cave is one of the biggest sights in Slovenia. There are excursions by bus from various places in Slovenia and neighbouring countries. The bus tours can be booked at Getyourguide.com.
It is easy to see why the Postojna Cave is one of Slovenia’s top sights. Huge stalactites hang from the ceiling, gigantic stalagmites grow out of the floor. Some are said to be over 16 metres high. A highlight are the different-coloured stalactites in the “Beautiful Cave” section. Especially the white specimens, which are not without reason called “brilliants”, are beautiful. The highlight of the is the Concert Hall, a huge cave room in Postojna Cave. There is an underground lake in the hall. Concerts are held here regularly, and the natural space has good acoustics. A highlight is also the aquarium with the grotto elms in the concert hall (formerly the dance hall). It is a species of amphibian that only exists here (see below).
The Postojna Cave is called “Postojnska jama” in Slovenian; in German, the old name “Adelsberger Grotte” is heard less often today. Nowadays, the English name “Postojna cave” is more common.
Book day trips in Slovenia onlineYou can book many great day trips within Slovenia by bus online. Many of these tickets are available on the well-known website Getyourguide.de. – Bus tours to the Postojna Caves: Click here – Tours to and from Lake Bled: Click here – Tours and bus trips Ljubljana: Click here |
Tour of the Postojna Caves
Opening hours 2023: Visitors are admitted to the cave every hour on the hour. In summer the opening hours of Postojna Cave are from 10 am to 6 pm, in winter from 10 am to 4 pm. In summer there is also a guided tour in German every hour, in winter several times a day. The number of visitors is enormous. On some days in summer, up to 10,000 visitors come to the largest single sight in Slovenia. That’s more than 1,000 cave visitors per hour. Postojnska jama is probably the most visited and best-known cave in the world. The visit takes about 90 minutes. During this time, you first take the yellow cave train, followed by an extended guided tour on foot. There are guided tours in four languages: Slovenian, English, German and Italian. It is cold in the cave even in summer (about 8 to 9 degrees), so you should definitely bring a jacket or similar even on a hot summer day.
Entrance fees 2023: Unfortunately, visiting the cave in Postojna makes a small hole in your holiday budget. But it’s worth it, you won’t forget a visit to the cave for the rest of your life. The entrance fee for adults is currently 27.90 in summer (beginning 2022). Students pay €20.60 admission to Postojnska jama, children between 5 and 15 cost €15.50. Only children up to 5 years old can enter the cave cheaply: they only pay the price of €1. There are also many discounted combination tickets with other sights such as castles and caves in the area.
How to get there: There are shuttle buses to the cave from the railway station and from the centre of Postojna. There are huge car parks a few hundred metres from the entrance to Postojna Cave.
Day trips to Postojna Cave: The cave is one of the biggest sights in Slovenia. There are excursions by bus from various places in Slovenia and neighbouring countries. The bus tours can be booked at Getyourguide.com.
Postojna can be reached quickly by car via the A1 motorway. Up to 20 trains a day run to and from Ljubljana. Buses also run about once an hour. To Koper on the sea (Slovenian Adriatic) there are fewer trains (about 5 per day), but buses run every hour. There are also direct buses to Postojna from other places in Slovenia.
Museum Postojna: In the town there is a museum worth seeing called “Notranski muzej”. It is about 400 metres from the railway station. The museum is about wildlife, geology and caves in the Karst region. Ideally, you should visit the museum first and then the caves.
Grotto olm: These snake-like amphibians can only be found in the underworld of caves in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The grotto olm has a length of 25 cm, sometimes up to 35 cm. They have regressed eyes and are blind. The caudate amphibians have specialised in the dark life in caves. The grotto olms have many special features: They have both lungs and gills. They lay eggs, but can also give birth alive. What is also very unusual for amphibians is that cave olms can live up to 100 years. These interesting cave animals can be seen in an aquarium in the “concert hall” of the Postojna cave. The international or Latin name of the species is “Proteus anguinus”. There have been a number of attempts to settle the cave elm in other countries, including Germany. These settlement attempts have been less successful so far. Incidentally, the only other olm species in the world is the rutting newt in the USA. More than 100 other animal species live in the Postojna Cave in Slovenia. These include bats, snails, fleas, grasshoppers and other insects.
A completely different book, on the other hand, is the novel “Höhlenbiest -Thriller “, in which much revolves around Slovenia, caves and grotto elms
Some tips: Accommodation in Postojna
There is little accommodation directly at Postojna Jama Cave, as the region’s major attraction is outside the town. Most visitors stay overnight in the town and walk to the cave. Depending on where the hotel in Postojna is, you walk for about 10 to 20 minutes.
Good value and not too far from the cave is the much praised holiday accommodation Rooms Klik. As far as we know, all rooms have, among other things, a private bathroom, Wi-Fi, a fridge and a TV. The room rental was clean when we visited, the owners very nice. You walk about a kilometre to the Postojna-Jama Cave and a good kilometre to the train station. Our recommendation in Postojna for a cheap accommodation. Parking is free of charge.
One of the best hotels in Postojna is not far from the entrance of the cave. The Postojna Cave Hotel Jama is a larger accommodation with a very good reputation. It offers all the amenities of a larger hotel such as a restaurant, bar and very good Wi-Fi. Larger flats with 2 bedrooms are also available.
Proteus Postojna Hostel is one of the best hostels in Slovenia. The hostel also rents bicycles and has kitchen facilities. A bed costs around 15 euros per night, and whole rooms without private bathroom start at around 23 euros, depending on the season. The Proteus is in the middle of the town of Postojna.
The information and prices on this website are from 2019 to 2023.