In August it’s short tour with boat ride on I. lake (1-1,15h) possible everday at 9am, 11am, 13pm, 15pm and 17pm. Other visits by arrangement.
It is the only naturally preserved tourist cave in Slovenia, so it contains no strong lighting and concrete pathways. Before entering, visitors receive rubber boots and a portable, rechargeable flashlight. Extremely slow growing sinter barriers between lakes (up to 0.1 mm per year) and their fragility present the main obstacle for visitors, which prevents mass tourism and causes a restriction to the daily number of tourist, who can visit the water part of the cave, which is limited to four people.
The main guideline while visiting the cave is to limit consequences of tourism on the sinter barriers and to the level of natural self-restoration of the cave – which places it among the best preserved tourist caves in Slovenia. The maximum credit for that belongs to certain members of the Assotiation of Križna cave lovers, who dedicated much of their time to the cave, and handed out their experience to the younger generations.
Since the elimination of carbonate from the water at rapids is more than ten times faster compared to lake water, that leads to formation of sinter dams, which appear on spots, where rapids are located and caused lakes up to 7 meters in depth.
There are 22 lakes in the cave,which can be crossed by a boat, but if we also count in the smaller lakes of Blatnikov rov, the number rises to 45.
Each visit includes a boat tour. On a short tour or a short tour and Bear tunel, you will take a boat ride on Lake I. If you come for a longer 3.5-4 hour tour, the path will lead you across the 13th lakes to Calvary.
On the longest alternative tour to Crystal mountain, takes you over 20 lakes. During the tour the cave guide takes care of moving the boat over sinter barriers.
It is an active water cave with sinter dams, lakes and flowing water, which creates different rock forms, such as facets, grooves and ceiling pockets,… The water stream in the cave appears from beneath rockfalls at it’s eastern part. At low and medium water level there is percolating water, but at high water level, there is also the presence of disapearing streams of Bloke plateau (Bloška planota, Farovščica).
Water in the cave repeatedly disappears into a siphon, but resurfaces and finally leaves the cave in Kittlow wells (Kittlovih breznih), resurfaces in Križna cave 2, and once again disapears in it’s western end and once again appears in the spring of Šteberščica on Cerknica field.
Despite oligotrophicity, which means a small amount of nutrients in the water, the cave is rich in terms of underground fauna. So far, they discovered 60 underground animal species, which ranks the cave 4th in the world by it’s diversity. Both water and surface animals are frequent: dripstone amphipods (Niphargus stygius), blind amphipods (Niphargus orcinus), cave hedgehog (Monolistra racovitzae), 6 species of tiny snails (3 of them endemic), cave Isopoda (Titanethes albus), cave spider (melted taenaria) drobnovratnik (Leptodirus hochenwartii), cave worm (Pelodrilus Buresch).
Also frequent are periodical cave animals like Lesser horseshoe bats (Together with the Cave Novi križ the second largest wintering spot for bats in Slovenia). Two species actually gained their name after the Križna cave (bug križnojamski brezokec, križnojamska belgrandiela).
Part of the skeleton (skull) can be seen during all Križna cave tours. If you want to see a larger amount of cave bear remains you can decide to attend an alternative tour of Bear tunnel (Medvedji rov).
The bones of a cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) were firstly noticed in 1847 by Aleksander Skofiz, who reported it to the curator od Museum of Ljubljana Henriku Freyerju. Excavation was started in 1878 by Ferdinand von Hochstetter. In just four days more than 2000 remains were discovered, which makes the place the richest in remains in this part of Europe. He assembled two full skeletons, which were then sent to Vienna’s Natural History Museum.
In addition to the amount of bones, their size also stands out – the largest found skull in cave Križna is 56 cm long. There are many different opinions about the actual age of the bones – they are considered to be between 45.000 and 146.000 years old. Due to the large amount of the bones it is possible, that the cave was a home for the bears for tens of thousands of years. That is also shown by many bear marks on the rocky walls.
First known visitors were from metallic periods of time. Archaeoligists discovered a large amount of old pottery, the oldest of which are almost 5 thousand years old (from the time of Eneolithic, about 2800 B. C.). People didn’t actually live in the cave, but used it as a hideout.
The beginnings of tourism are strongly connected to exploration and research – they can often also be equated. First proofs of cave »visits« were made in 1557. In the following centuries the cave was constantly, but rarely visited. The most looked at were the entry areas – most of the people didn’t even reach the first lake. With the discovery of cave bear remains the amount of tourism rose.
EXCELLENTVerified Reccomend Interesting cave, very well perserved. The tour guide Sergej is kind with a lot of knowledge. We will defenitely come back for a longer tour.Posted on TripadvisorVerified The 4-hour tour is an amazing experience I got on the waitlist about 3 months prior to the trip because the days I wanted (and most of the rest of the month) were already booked up by then. Only 1000 a year are permitted on this tour for environmental reasons. Book in advance for longer trips! Fortunately I was able to join a 4-hour tour. I'm not sure the shorter trips would be worth the time, if you were time limited on your trip unless you really like caves. The 4-hour one definitely was worth it! The other caves in the region are altered with cement paths with railings and electric lights, not so here. It feels like you're actually in nature (Postojna, which I visited the next day is basically Disney land by comparison). We were a group of 4 plus our guide and it felt like a real adventure. We saw a lot of beautiful lakes and rock formations.Posted on TripadvisorVerified Amazing and authentic ! 4h tour effectuated today. The guide, named Sergej, was really good, we had lot of explanations but also amazing pictures as memory. The cave is really authentic as it is kept in its natural state. I recommand !Posted on TripadvisorVerified Amazing 4 hour tour with Gasper Note that they have daily tours and one 4 hour tour that is limited to 4 people per day. It is also limited by the water level. We went in early October but after 4 days of heavy rain, Gasper, our amazing guide, thought we would be the last 4 hour tour for at least a week. You are in and out of multiple rafts as you go through the cave so the water cannot be too high or too low or they need to cancel the trip. Come with warm clothes and they give you overall suits and boots to wear. Gasper was an outstanding guide - this was the hi-light of our Slovenia/Croatia vacation by far. Also note that it is cash only.Posted on TripadvisorVerified Incredible We went on the 7 hour long tour and it was out of this world. Waiting list is very long and conditions need to be right(water levels) but it was worth the wait and it is amazing the level of care taken to preserve the cave by the team of Guides.Posted on TripadvisorVerified Encounter with the cave bear The caves of Montecroce offer the possibility of a less “touristic” visit of the most famous caves. You enter in small groups with an English-speaking Guide and walk the first section of the caves to the first lake in the sole light of the torches that each participant receives before entering.The cave system that hosts many underground lakes (those after the first can only be visited by Reservation and in groups of 2 people) has hosted a large population of cave bears. In fact, the most interesting thing to see is the bear cave with the remains of these huge animals trapped deep inside. Then there is a small boat ride on the first lake by the light of a single torch.Very interesting explanations and well organized visit with boots and torches provided by the organizers.In the cave it is 8 degrees so you have to cover well. Snacks and soft drinks are available as well as chemical baths at the ticket kiosk. They only take cashPosted on TripadvisorVerified Avoidable Definitely off the tourist circuits, but in my opinion the detour is not worth it. Admission 14 euros. Duration of excursion 1 hour, with English Guide. Departures every two hours. The boat ride (which lasted maybe 5 minutes) seems to me a tourist trap (the blue water you see in the photos is not like that at all). You basically turn on yourself in the dark. Most of the route is done on foot. In itself the history of the place is also interesting, but basically there is nothing special to see in the cave. Very beautiful setting and surrounding vegetation. Reservation not required. Cover well because it is cool even in August.Posted on TripadvisorVerified Go your way! The one-hour tour has absolutely no point in August. There's no water... The use of the boat is anecdotal if not laughable. What to say about the skull of bear and 3 graffiti that hardly furnish hollow discourse to die of Guide....If you have ever seen 2 stalactites in your life, go your way without regret. You will save 38€ (2 Adults,1 child)Posted on TripadvisorVerified Don't take the 1-hour walk 1 hour tour without much interest, especially and summer (probably has nothing to do with longer tours, but by Reservation several months in advance). Almost nothing to see except 3 cave bear bones, almost dry in August, deserted bats that only come to hibernate. The only experience is to walk quickly through a cave without lighting with boots and a caving lamp and take a mini boat ride, but even that was not enough for a 7-year-old: "that's all?".Posted on TripadvisorVerified Brilliant Authentic Cave Experience It was brilliant to see a Slovenia cave and go be given such a good talk by someone so passionate and knowledgeable. We definitely would like to go back and would highly recommend to others!Verified by TrustindexTrustindex verified badge is the Universal Symbol of Trust. Only the greatest companies can get the verified badge who has a review score above 4.5, based on customer reviews over the past 12 months. Read more
