Closed Caves

Slovenia has a very long tradition in cave visiting and show caves. Vilenica is the oldest show cave of the world, and also Postojna has a very old tradition. Other once famous caves are now forgotten or closed to the public. It is not possible to mention all of them, but the most recently closed caves are listed on this page. Unfortunately it is not possible to visit them at the moment. Probably this will change. But we wanted to tell you that they are closed at the moment, because older travel guidebooks list them.

• Ravenska Aragonitna Jama: This is a pretty famous show cave, where the cave is rather unimpressive, but the aragonite speleothems make it an outstanding experience. This cave was opened to the public long ago, revived some years ago, and is listed in many booklets about Slovenia. Unfortunately it is very remote, in the small town Ravne, and it is reached by 10 km of steep single lane tracks. This resulted in a rather low numer of visitors and made it unprofitable to have regular tours, and the owners tried to show the cave by giving visitors the key. Unfortunately this resulted in damages, as aragonite crystals were broken and stolen by visitors. Now the owners decided to close the cave completely and it is even for speleologists nearly impossible to visit it. Although this is rather sad for visitors, we salute this decision in the sake of cave protection.
  Google Earth Placemark
• Rotnikova Jama: A pretty small cave, also with some aragonite speleothems. It was discovered by the landowner, right behind his restaurant. So visitors enter the cave at the rear wall of the restaurant. Unfortunately this small cave is closed now. Like in many countries, in Slovenia the underground does not belong to the landowner, but to the state. After immense effort of the owner to develop the cave, the state now tries to get a lease for the cave. As it is very remote, and also very small, the number of visitors is also very small. The lease would exceed the income, and so the cave is closed completely at the moment. Google Earth Placemark