We left Plitvice Lakes and headed north today. It was foggy in the park and on the mountaintops, but nothing like yesterday at the waterfalls! The drive down was super windy due to something called bora winds (pronounced “boo-ruh), which can produce winds over 125 mph.

Luckily we didn’t experience those winds, but it was really gusty! Thankfully we have an awesome driver who has nerves of steel and isn’t bothered by these things. It was 39 degrees F when we left Plitvice.

We wound down the mountain on some cool serpentine roads until we again reached the magnificent Adriatic Sea. While this doesn’t really convey how windy it was… for those familiar with bodies of water, and what this much white (caps) means on them, here’s a sample of the windy-ness:

We continued traveling on to the beautiful town of Opatija, Croatia. In this coastal town the temperature was nearly 20 degrees warmer than on the mountain! Sadly we only had an hour in the town and most restaurants don’t open until 11:30 in the off-season so we just walked on the seafront and then visited a grocery store for snacks.

Interesting facts our guide told us along the way about tourism and Croatia. Tourism is a major part of Croatia’s economy. During the season unemployment is around 8.6% but during the offseason it reaches over 13%! In 2017 revenue from tourism accounted for over 19% of the country’s GDP. That’s a lot of kuna (Croatia’s currency)!!

From Opatija we drove to the Croatia/Slovenia border where, for the first time this trip, we had to physically present our passports to the police. No big deal….show the passport, get a stamp, walk across the border. What is significant from our border crossing into Slovenia is that it’s the fifth country we’ve hit this trip!

The next exciting thing we did was visit Postojna Cave. Maybe exciting only if caves and rocks and such geek you out, so it was exciting to us. This is a massive cave. By massive we mean the cave is 15 miles long. Well, there are also massive rooms, massive stalactites, and massive stalagmites.

The visit started with an electric train ride (picture an old roller coaster car on train tracks) nearly two miles into the cave.

This was followed by just over a mile of walking through the cave in a constant 50 degree F temperature. A one mile walk sounds easy, right? Wrong! The steps and the steep inclines (all totally wet) were incredibly challenging, but quite worth it. And, we got to take a rest while we took the train back out of the cave.

Here are a sampling of pics from the cave to give you the feel (from the large rooms, to particular features):

Our final event of the night was a visit to a traditional family-operated Slovenian restaurant in a nearby small medieval village. This restaurant has been run by the same family for 46 years, with no plans to break tradition soon.

We were greeted by traditionally garbed folk, with the traditional piece of bread, dipped in salt.

We then moved to the wine cellar for wine and cheese along with two folk dancers and an accordion player (note: not all accordions are the same. This was a Slovenian accordion and sounded very different than a standard accordion!).

While enjoying the cheese and wine they demonstrated the traditional dancing from this region of Slovenia.

After dinner (which was quite tasty!) the folk dancers and accordion player explained their traditional outfits to us. We were then treated to what they call apple pie, which was more like a pie/strudel/cake, and was very delicious!!

After that, the trio appeared again to play a traditional Slovenian game with us. This game consisted of the “players” donning a hat and standing in a circle, left hand on the shoulder of the person to their left, and right hand on the person to their right’s hat.

Once the music started playing they were to take off the hat from the right and put it on their own head. This cadence was kept as the music sped up. As soon as someone messed up, they were out, and it started over with the remaining players until there was only one man standing.

After the games, they ended up dragging us all into a traditional Slovenian dance. (Even Tim and Jay… who DON’T DANCE…)

Tim ended up dancing with the local gal, and Jay ended up dancing with the local guy. And for the record, yes, Jay touched his pants.

All in all, it was a really fun evening.