With a length of 20,570m, Postojna Cave, located in Inner Carniola, în Slovenia, is one of the world's largest karst monuments, and one of the best known. Created by the Pivka, a lost river which has only 27km in length, this fantastic web of tunnels, passages, galleries and halls was first described in the 17th century even by Valvasor, one of the main precursors of modern historiography in present-day Slovenia.
A new area of the cave was discovered accidentally in 1818 by local Luka Čeč, when he was preparing the hitherto known parts of the cave for a visit by Emperor Francis II. A year later the cave was opened to the public, and Čeč became its first official tourist guide. Electric lighting was added in 1884 (before Ljubljana), and in 1872 the first cave train for tourists, at first pushed along by the guides themselves. At the beginning of the 20th century was introduced a gas locomotive, replaced, after 1945, by an electric one. From 300m of accessible routes in 1818, a visitor today can enjoy the tour of 5km, the longest publicly accessible depth of any cave system in the world.
The cave is also home for tiny spiders, the fascinating tiny-neck beetle, the cave water louse, grasshoppers, butterflies, water snails, bats, and also for the endemic olm, the largest trogloditic amphibian in the world. The tour through the caves includes an aquarium with some olms in it.
About the stamp
The stamp, depicting a flower bouquet, is an international greeting stamp issued on May 19, 2006 and designed by Jelka Reichman, best known for her children's books illustrations, named Slovene Woman of the Year for 2011. From this series of greeting stamps I found only another one, depicting a sunflower (value A), issued on May 20, 2005.
References
Postojna Cave - Wikipedia
Postojnska jama - official website
Sender: Ana
Sent from Postojna (Inner Carniola / Slovenia), on 20.08.2012
Photo: Darinka Mladenovic
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