Back to Slovenia

We had to drop our car rental off in Ljubljana so we ended up briefly seeing the country of Slovenia a second time. We made a quick tour of the Predjama Castle which is located in a cave. It is an impressive sight and has rarely been successfully attacked over the centuries. It's built right into a cave so many rooms have rock as well as brick or wooden walls. The castle's 'back door' is an extremely long cave system which is one of the reasons this castle is so easy to defend. The most famous resident of the castle was Erazem Lueger back in the fifteen century who was a robber baron. The Hapsburgs hunted him down and he hid in the castle. The Predjama Castle was besieged for a long time but could not be taken since the defenders could get supplies through the cave system behind the castle. Lueger would even throw food down to his enemies to taunt them. He was finally killed when one of his own men betrayed him. It was a fascinating tour especially since we got to feel what it would be like to live in this castle in the winter. It may look interesting to live in a castle but staying warm would be hard work.

Then it was back to Ljubljana where we discovered how the city looked when it wasn't raining. There was a Winter Festival happening but we had to keep on moving. So it was time to wrap up our visit to this corner of the world and return to Italy for our last two weeks. Our nearly four weeks in the Balkans were very memorable with endless highlights that we won't soon forget. We are so glad that we decided to explore this beautiful and fascinating corner of Europe.