Divača

The visit is a guided walk and it builds deliberately. The first stretch passes through chambers with the formations you would expect of any major cave, handsome and unremarkable, and then the path turns a corner into the canyon and the scale changes completely. The gorge is high enough that the lighting cannot reach the roof, wide enough that the far wall is a shape rather than a surface, and the Reka is audible long before it is visible somewhere below. The route runs along a ledge cut into the wall with a handrail and a considerable drop, and crosses the canyon on a bridge suspended in the middle of that dark space, which is the moment the visit exists for. It is not suitable for anyone seriously afraid of heights, and it is a real walk — well over a kilometre underground with many steps, ending in either a long ascent or a funicular back to the surface. Photography is not allowed on the main route, which is why the place is far less familiar than its neighbour despite being the more remarkable of the two. It holds around twelve degrees all year, so a jacket is needed whatever the surface weather, and proper shoes matter because the path is wet in places. The Postojna guide sets out the other side of this choice for anyone weighing accessibility against scale.