Adriatic Treasures: Croatia to Venice
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 13-29, 2019
I'm going to leave the map at the start of each page so you can see where we are.
9/24/2019 (Tuesday) Today we go to the Postojna Caves. This is actually a map of our travels today.
Tauck had arranged for an early opening just for our group to enter before the official opening time, so we had a very early departure from the hotel. It was really worth it. The caves are amazing and it was very nice to be able to see them without jostling lots of other tourists. I'll post pictures of the crowds waiting to get in as we departed.
I took a lot of pictures, but pictures cannot convey the experience of these caves. They are the largest caves in Europe and are truely amazing. The landscape of Croatia is largely limestone, and over the eons many caves have been formed, with new discoveries being made each year.
Here are Matt and Judy just before we entered the caves.
The entrance to the caves.
This is the guide for our tour. They call themselves "Cavemen".
[Photography note: The caves are dimly lit so I had to use a very high ISO to take pictures. You'll notice that these pictures are a bit more "noisy" than pictures taken in outside light. Also, I've processed all the pictures in PhotoShop to bring out the detail in the areas not well lit and to adjust the color - so you aren't seeing the caves exactly the way we saw it.]
I took several hundred pictures in the cave. I'm only showing a small part of the cave in these pictures.
An electric train took us about 2km into the caves. The temperature in the caves is cool but not cold, about 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). You should wear a jacket to be comfortable.
We're loading into the cars.
We passed through small caverns and tunnels cut into the rock. This was just a "warm-up". There wasn't much head room in some of the tunnels.
We arrived at the "train station" inside the cave. From here on, the light was very dim. Also, there was a mixture of light types - some reddish and some greenish so it was difficult to color correct the pictures. We began a walk through more large caverns, going slightly downhill. The walkway was damp, but the concrete was specially coated and not slippery at all.
The first thing you see after exiting the train is this gigantic cavern. It's hard to show the scale in a picture.
Another view into that cavern.
Some detail.
The caveman explaining some features in the cave. I've tired to select a few pictures with people in them so you can appreciate the scale of some of the features in the cave.
Another picture with the caveman.
Some of the structures in the cave.
We arrived at what is known as the "Russian Bridge" because during World War I Russian prisoners were forced to build this bridge. I'll show a view from below the bridge later. Note how high we are at this point.
Some of the fantastical formations in the cave.
More features.
A big cavern.
A view of the Russian Bridge from below. Yes, we were up there in a previous photo.
When we went back to the "train station" to leave the cave, we heard singing. Tauck had arranged for this local group to entertain us, and for some Champagne. What an exit!
On the train returning to the entrance.
As we were leaving, three or four trains passed us heading into the cave. And they were completely filled with visitors.
This picture is included for Victor, showing the engine as we went around a curve.
Here are people waiting to enter the cave. It's going to be very crowded in the cave. While we had to get up early, having the early entrance - before the official opening - was really worth it. It allowed us to view the cave without having a lot of other visitors around us.
After leaving the caves we went to a truffle farm. Well, technically, the place where the truffles are found is some distance away in a field, but we first stopped for a truffle snack near the house. Truffle cheese, truffle olive oil, and truffle scrambled eggs. Lots of truffle.
They use dogs to sniff out the truffles. Here's one of the truffle dogs - I think her name was "Candy". And, incidentally, all of their truffle dogs are female. They said the male dogs are too interested in finding female dogs and don't do a good job of finding truffles.
We were given a talk about truffles.
They offered us some liqueurs that had been infused with truffles.
And showed us what the truffles look like. Black truffles on the right and white truffles on the left, displayed in a nice wooden bowl.
Then we had a light lunch of truffle infused foods: Cheese, scrambled eggs, and pasta. I discovered that I did not care for the taste of truffle.
Then we went to the actual farm to see the dogs sniff out truffles. This was one of the dog trainers.
These are the two dogs he will use for the demonstration. The dog on the left is young while Candy, on the right, is older and more experienced.
Here some of our tour group is ready to enter the orchard. We're wearing plastic booties.
Apparently, they can grow black truffles in an orchard but not the white truffle. The white truffle is only found in the wild. That contributes to the higher price.
A few dog pictures. Here the girls are getting started.
And a few more dog pictures. I took a lot of dog pictures:-)
Candy found a truffle and the trainer dug it out. If Candy had been allowed to dig too much, she might have damaged the truffle and ruined its marketability.
Candy resting after all of her hard work (actually, they just sniffed and scratched - it's not hard on the dogs at all).
Then we headed to upper part of the Istria Peninsula to the Kempinski Hotel located in the town of Savudrija on the Adriatic. We'll visit Pula tomorrow to see the colosseum there.