Boutique tourist products are hidden in the side tunnels of the Postojna Cave, which are not open for mass visits. Movement through these passages is more difficult, as one needs to pass through water barriers, climb down the rope into narrow tunnels and experience the trail of pioneer explorers in this way. What these tourists seek are darkness and silence.

This April the Postojna Cave welcomed its 36-millionth visitor, which is a unique record of Slovenia’s most renowned cave. On 17 August 1819 the first visitor of the then newly discovered part of the cave was the Austrian heir to the throne Ferdinand I. For this occasion, visitor records had been introduced, and the tradition of counting the total number of visitors to the Postojna Cave has never been interrupted. In its first year the cave welcomed 104 visitors, but by the end of the 20th century the number rose to almost a million per year. Nowadays the top visitors are Italians, followed by South Koreans and Germans as traditionally in third place; Slovenians take fourth place.

Despite mass tourism Postojna’s underground world is home to extraordinary speleological, karstological and biological activities. It boasts the richest underground biodiversity points and one of the most widely studied cave habitats in the world.

M. G.