Slovenia day 7 & 8

We want to make the most of our last full day so we've got another day trip lined up. More cool caves! This time it's off to Skocjan caves right on the Italian border which are famous for being over 100m high and having a river running through. Unfortunately when we arrived at the nearest bus stop it turned out that the shuttle bus to the caves wasn't running at that time (although it was running at 2.30pm even though our tour would be the last one of the day - useful!) so we had a bit of a walk to find the caves. It wasn't easy to find signposts, most were about palm sized and really far apart so it took a bit of guess work to find them. Another couple had arrived at the bus stop at the same time as us so we headed off together but after 5 minutes they disappeared off in another direction, they chose to follow the road. The race was on! We definitely picked the right route to walk, as after a bit of time nervously walking along a road we ended up on a nature trail with fantastic views of the surrounding valleys. Even better we beat the other couple to the cave park by 5 minutes!

Our tour started with a 10 minute walk down to the cave entrance. It should have been 2 but our guide was sooooooo slooooow. We then got a lecture about not being allowed to take photos, to keep up with the group and blah blah blah. We were really hoping the caves wee more interesting than her! We spent about half an hour close to the group but the guide had such a boring voice and her information was so dull (this cave is so high, this cave is that high, the river is this long etc...) that we started falling behind a bit and making up our own stories. We weren't the only ones doing it, one couple got so far behind that the lights got turned off in the section they were in because the guide was so far ahead! Anyway we were having much more fun ourselves especially when we got to the best part of the caves: a huge cavern with the river below and a bridge crossing it 40m above. It was spectacular and called for a few blurry selfies in the dim light. The rest of the walk took us out of the caves where the river entered and up the valley again in the shortest funicular ride ever, we both agreed it was a bit pointless since we'd walked up so far anyway. Our verdict on Skocjan caves then? Worth seeing but nowhere near as good as Postonja and it would have been so much better with a different guide.

Oops we're a bit far behind!

Someone nicked James' skateboard!

It's our last day and we have an afternoon train booked to go to Zagreb. It's a beautiful day and we wish we weren't leaving yet, especially as there is a wine festival on in Ljubljana today! At least we make it into the city early and we can enjoy the atmosphere for a few hours before leaving. The festival is brilliant, we pay a deposit to get a glass and then just work our way round as many stalls as possible getting free tasters of the different wines. All the locals are behaving and having a great time but there's one person who's not. It's an American girl stumbling towards Christine, clutching her broken wine glass and wailing for her friends to help her. It's only 12pm! Christine has to dodge out the way to avoid a face full of glass and we chuckle. Another few freebies and we merrily wander down to the train station to start the next part of our trip. Bye bye Ljubljana, we'll miss you!

wine festival!