Koper

Arrived in Koper around 7am and docked close to the town center. This is the largest coastal city in Slovenia on the Adriatic and only 13 miles from Trieste in Italy. Slovenia is a relatively new country which got independence in 1991 and has a population of 2 Million. The day started cloudy and dry but slowly deteriorated with rain in the afternoon and temperature reaching 19C. Today the tour was to Skocjan caves and then a winery. 34 of us boarded our bus around 8:30am. Our tour leader was Andi. A drive through the countryside brought us to the caves ticket office just before 9am. We were early so took a walk up to the viewing area on the hills, high above the caves with the Reka river and falls below. Returning to the ticket office we met our cave guide Marco around 9:20 and he led us on a 15 minute country walk, down to the caves entrance. Fortunately we were early so were the first group into the caves. There is no photography allowed underground but I have included a few stock photos from the internet as substitute. Entering the man made tunnel we descended until we entered the first natural underground chamber. This is the “whispering cave” and we slowly made our way down the narrow sloping path with intermittent steps, getting deeper into this amazing chamber. The whole place is full of fantastic rock formations and stalactites and stalagmites. Continuing down we came to a large chamber at the bottom of this cave. All the way down there is strategic lighting to emphasize the different formations. Stopping at the end of this chamber the guide then switched on the lighting to the “Martel chamber” so we could look down through this immense cavern with the river flowing below. We then continued down the path into this cavern keeping to the left wall. Water was dripping from the walls here so caution was needed. We eventually came to the Cerkvenik bridge which is high above a 50 meter canyon with the river below. Having crossed this we continued to the bottom and then slowly climbed the steps back up the other side. Eventually we could see light coming in from a wide opening ahead. This turned into our exit from the cave system and we were allowed to continue taking photos now. We were now outside but low down in the gorge with river across from us. A narrow path continued upward following the rock face until we came to a funicular. A short ride up and we were once again at the ticket office around 11:30am. We had walked approximately 3.5km through the system. Re-boarding our bus we proceeded to the Bordon family winery by about 12:15. Here we had a tour by one of the owners and then relaxed at the tables for a wine tasting. We sampled a white, rose and a red wine, all of which are organic and very good. A short bus ride back to the dockside for 2pm. Also included are a few photos of Koper old town.