The story of Postojna Cave

In 1818, as the cave was being prepared for a visit by Emperor Francis I, a local man in charge of lighting the lamps, Luka Čeč, stumbled upon a whole new part of it. Čeč went on to become the cave's first official guide. Carved by the Pivka River, Postojna Cave is a karst system 24.34 kilometres long, the second longest in Slovenia, and graffiti inside dated to 1213 shows that people came here long before.

Electric lighting arrived in 1884, even before Ljubljana had it, and in 1872 rails were laid for the first cave train; at first the guides pushed it themselves. During the Second World War German forces stored nearly 1,000 barrels of aircraft fuel here, destroyed by Slovene Partisans in April 1944; the fire burned for seven days and blackened the entrance. Today a train carries you 3.5 km through the cave.

Look out for the olm, the world's largest cave-dwelling amphibian, and the world's first underground post office, opened in 1899.