Wednesday trip to the world of limestone

When I re-read my last post this morning, I told myself there must be something more interesting to do, but soak in warm water for whole day. So I thought to do a little trip south. I decided to do sort of Ljubljanica trip- I took the old road from Ljubljana to Postojna, took a detour at Planinsko polje to Unec, and made a great walk at Rakov Škocjan. Rakov Škocjan is a natural park. It's main attraction is a gorge of river Rak, one of many names for river Ljubljanica as it appears and disappears on the limestone terrain of this part of Slovenia. Rakov Škocjan is especially known for its two natural bridges- one of them is even so big, the road leads across it, and at one stage there was a small church built on it- ruins of which can still be seen. Anyways, the most spectacular part of this park (at least for me) is the very point where Rak flows out from cave. It's surrounded by steep cliffs of each sides, there's a natural bridge over it at the very start. Rak disappears and reappears from couple of caves, before it finally emerges few hundred meters from this point for its 5 km course- where it disappears again into the underworld. It is a great walk- and if there's been rain or snow lately you are bound to get at least a little bit wet from water dripping from cave walls above you... The route itself goes down into gorge, than up again, and crosses the river twice. Truly spectacular!

Rak river as it emerges from the underworld

Man made bridge in the gorge

Natural bridge (Mali most)

My next intention was, to climb hill Slivnica above Cerknica lake, but unfortunately due to snow I decided to leave it for some other time. The lake was less than half full, so the view probably wasn't all that spectacular at that stage. The rest of the trip was mostly drive back to Ljubljana- across snow covered Bloke plateau, and the road from Ribnica to Kočevje. My note- I'd recommend this trip to everyone.