Mines

Almost nobody will arrive in Slovenia thinking, "brilliant, I'm here at last.. now for Lake Bled, the mountains, the coast and some amazing mines!"

But you should know that Slovenia has such a rich mining history and some spectacularly good days out underground on offer that are every bit as good as the amazing natural caves here. so we just had to include these special places in our beloved "Daytrips" section!

We are going to tell you about just 3 brilliant mines.. we have visited all of these now and each one offers a completely different experience!

If you haven't been down a mine, the experience is a bit like going down a huge cave, but totally different!

On a hot day (and there are plenty of those in Green Slovenia).. you can cool off down a mine and also learn a bit about the history of that particular mini region. You can also combine a visit to one of these mines with maybe a castle, a river for a bit of swimming or pretty much anything else you want to do or see in that particular mini region..

   the mercury mine in slovenia   visit the mine museum in slovenia

IDRIJA Mercury Mine Tour (55 mins from the Lodge)..

We absolutely love the Idrija Mercury mine which was once the second largest mercury mine in the world.

Whichever way you travel to Idrija it is a beautiful ride along country rocky green roads and often next to a river. The nearer you wind to Idrija the more you get a feeling of going into a remote, isolated place as the rocks turn into mountains and you arrive in the pretty little town seemingly cut off from the rest of the world and sitting inside a huge bowl!

As with many of these unique special places around Slovenia it is always worth taking a moment.. look around you and take it all in, as this place is so obviously in Europe, but you have to pinch yourself to remember you are in little old Green Slovenia!

At the mine you get a really good idea of what life was like for the miners.. it was tough.

What's more you get to wear miner's overalls and a great safety hat with light to go down the mine and if you are lucky, you might be accompanied by an ex miner, but some don't speak English, so you may get a slightly younger guide, who would be too young to have actually worked down the mine.. but maybe their grandpa did as the mine closed down a long time ago, but walking around the underground shafts you really get the feeling it could have closed just yesterday.

Every mine has a thick atmosphere and in Idrija the history of this pretty little isolated town is also thick all around you.

You get an intro video in the main reception hall with the historical background and then.. just like a miner going onto their shift.. you go into the cavernous mine. The walking is not so bad, just a few ladders to climb to access different levels.

srecno means good luck and is a motto of miners as they start another shift down the mine..
srecno means good luck and is a motto of miners as they start another shift down the mine..

  

There is a great local restaurant above the mine as well, serving very local dishes. In this mini region of Slovenia they specialise in a pasta/ meat dish that is completely unpronounceabubble and begins with "Z". It's yummy.

The whole town of Idrija is like a big museum and is indeed UNESCO protected..

There are multiple mini museums around the town connected to the mine.. for example, you could visit a miner's house and in fact we noticed a bit of deja vue for Amsterdam here in Idrija as the housing stock is all squeezed into this tiny rock bowl around the mine with thin, narrow, tall houses, a little like Holland!

You can go see the biggest wooden water wheel in Europe and there are rock, mine and local lace displays in the formiddable castle..

The beautiful Bela (white) river that brought life and the logs to build the pit shafts to the town has a strong connection and forest path to Idrija.. if you have time then try to explore upriver, (there is a brown sign to Bela Idrija just as you leave the town), where you can swim on a hot day and if you go all the way up into the forest you can see the fantastic stone dam that was built to control the waterflow and transport logs down to the mine!

So there is A LOT to do in Idrija itself, but also keep in mind there are two mr secret places to visit really close to here too.. the wonderful micro museum at the Franja secret WW2 hospital hidden in the mountains above nearby Cerkno and in the forests on a mountain above Idrija you can also find the Secret WW2 Partisans Printing Press!

Warning: look out for naughty, mischievious little creatures that can only be found in Slovenian mines..

Sandwich Stealing Pixies: You will not find any of these mysterious little creatures down Slovenian caves, (more likely a baby dragon or a bat down a cave), but you need to keep your eyes wide open when you go down a Slovenian mine!

Probably best to keep looking over your shoulder too. The miners always took a sandwich and a cake on their shift, but often.. deep down underground their lunch could go mysteriously missing if they just looked away for a second!

Well.. it was always those sneaky little pixies who live down Slovenia's mines who got the blame! In fact those Sandwich Stealing Pixies seemed to get the blame for quite a lot of other things too!!

  wooden cart ride down slovenian mine visit the mezica mine in slovenia  

Mexico (Mezica) mine Tour (2 hrs 20)..

We had heard about this mine where you can go mountain biking inside, which sounds fun, so were desperate visit it and decided to combine our trip with a tour of the nearby amazing Hunter's valley, (the Logarska valley).

The mine is in a stunning mini region in the Karavanke Alps, (Slovenia's second of four Alpine regions) being mountainous & very rocky with very pretty shaped mountains..

The drive here is very pretty, going directly alongside these steep rocky cliffs and when we arrived we had a huge surprise.. there are actually 3 incredible options you can take to explore the mine.. there are so many shafts to explore here.. if they were all stretched out they would reach Berlin!

1: By foot.. you go down the mine in the original Indiana Jones style wooden carriages used by the miners, packed into the boxes like sardines fearing for your life in the dark.. absolutely fantastic! You would pay the very reasonable entrance alone just to do this amazing ride!

2: By bike.. guided mountain bike trips exploring another part of the mine. You get driven to your starting spot in a mini bus, with the bikes on a trailer and go with a guide into the mine, then cycle mostly downhill freewheeling back!

3: By kayak.. Yep indeed.. when the mine was decommissioned, large areas were flooded with water so the mine would not collapse and now lucky visitors can explore them exclusively by kayak!

This is the ONLY mine in Europe you can explore by bike in the morning and kayak in the afternoon!

Each activity, walking / biking / kayaking is a half day activity, so in one day you would have to choose 2 of them, (the bike and kayak combo sounds truly breath taking).. BUT the kayaking takes place ONLY in the morning AND there are a limited number of kayaks, so make sure you book this one well ahead and do the walk or biking in the apres midi!

We were absolutely gobsmacked to find out how much you can do here and we made the mistake only to have a half day available, so we chose to explore the mine by foot on our first guided tour..

We got to wear bright orange overalls and a miner's hat and squeezed excitedly into one of the tight wooden box carts! 

   bike, kayak or hike in slovenian mine   miles of shafts in slovenian lead and zinc mine

The scraping, screeching, rolling noise made by the cart in total blackness is absolutely terrific going down the Temple of Doom, ooops sorry, the mine! truly terrifying.

The tour is fascinating and very different to the Idrija tour as you see how mining changed over the decades and how new ways were found to extract the huge amounts of lead and zinc here, mainly to make batteries.

Machinery and tools are scattered around every corner and underneath one shaft in particular the guide cheerily explains that if the miner felt a little tired on a long shift and didn't close the wooden shutter filling his cart with rocks in time then he would be buried alive with debris!

You come back up on the train too, so a double bubble rubble trouble! (thank you very much!)

Within the mine complex there is also a miners house mocked up to see how the Mezic miners lived.. quite different in size and shape to those at Idrija..

The mine is also under the massive  Peca mountain (2,126m) where Slovenia's legendary last king is sleeping in a hidden chamber, waiting to come back and save the country when called upon.. or alternatively when his beard grows to a certain length.

For kids and big kids there is a really great wooden maze in the mine's grounds that explains the legend of King Matjaz, yet another Slovenian legend completely missed by Hollywood. 

We went back to the mine on another trip with our nephews and did the biking tour this time, which was just such a different biking experience underground along long shafts with only the light from your headlamp to show the way.. 

The mine is so massive you see a completely different part of it!

So we just have the kayaking to do here next.. watch this space! 

   the myth of slovenias king matjaz   biking down slovenian mine

Velenje Coal mine Tour.. (90 mins)..

We finally got to do the Velenje coal mine tour and it is very different to the other mine tours in Slovenia.. we honestly couldn't choose which mine to go to if we had to pick just one, so it might come down to a decision based on your logistics and location on your Slovenian adventures!

This mine is still operating and providing low grade coal to power one third of Slovenia's electricity supplies via a massive thermal power station nearby, but don't worry, the mine tour is in a grand old disused part of the mine!

You need to book your tour ahead, so they know you are coming and leave plenty of time to get here as the mine is actually easy to find.. (just go towards the massive lakes at the other side of the town), but we with google and got lost!! 

There are big brown signs in the town to follow, they are not in English, but this is the biggest show in town, so you can blindly follow them!!

Some of the now disused mine buildings would be perfect for a sci fi or gangster movie, with broken windows and the corrosion of a previous industrial age.. so park up here and go find the entrance..

exiting the fantastic miners lift at Velenje mine..
exiting the fantastic miners lift at Velenje mine..

 

The mine tour is about an hour or so which is perfect and you get to wear a miner's hat with light and go down the mine in the most fantastic original clunky miner's lift with different rings of bells for communication!

The tour is informative and fascinating.. you will learn about the mine through the ages with short stops and recorded messages like little theatre plays, bu you are also accompanied on your journey by a friendly guide!

The part a local guide plays in this whole show is more than just someone showing you around a fantastic mine.. this is your chance to meet a Slovenian person too and a representative of the Velenje community.. so ask your questions about life over the ages and now.. you will get an interesting answer!

It may seem a simple thing, but for us it was just so wonderful to be given our miner's lunch in a paper bag.. a proper miner's snack.. a sausage in a roll and a drink.. but it made us feel like real miners and an integral part of this mine for our visit and we congratulate Velenje mine for doing this.. it is a really nice touch!

one of the old shafts in the Velenje mine tour..
one of the old shafts in the Velenje mine tour..

 

In non covid years, you get to eat your lunch on a little break in the lowest restaurant in Slovenia, 160 metres below ground! You also get a little ride back to the lift in an original miner's train, which we absolutely loved!

You could easily spend a day out in Velenje..

The mine is huge and so much coal has been dug away over the years that three big lakes were formed when the shafts were collapsed.. the largest of these is now a water sports lake for the local community.. AND FOR YOU.. if you would like a swim or a chill out after your mine tour in one of the lake side cafes! 

If you are not from an ex socialist country then we really should tip Velenje as a great place to get a bit of an idea how old Yugoslavia looked.. the town was built to a socialist plan by the workers and there are further exhibits about this and some other surprises in the fantastic Velenje castle that sits up on the hill above the town.

So we would tip a trip to the mine, combined with a castle visit and a stroll around the town centre with the ultimate end goal of finding the uberfantastic chocolate cafe, hidden away inside a shopping centre! This is the Lucifer HQ, one of the finest Slovenian chocolate makers, so have a coffee and then maybe pop into their shop for a big choice of inventively made Slovenian choccy! 

Email: info@lipizzanerlodge.com

Address: Landol 17, Postojna 6230, Slovenia

Phone: +386 5620 3443
Mobile: +386 40 47 0239 or +386 40 37 8037

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