Postojna

Postojna lies beside the Pivka River in the karst country of Carniola, below the Postojna Gate, the easiest pass from the interior of Slovenia down to the northern Adriatic. The town takes its name from the white-tailed eagle, postojna, which nested on nearby Sovič hill, where a medieval castle stood above the old settlement of Majlont. Written sources mention the settlement in the thirteenth century, and it became a borough in 1432. From the later Middle Ages it formed part of the Duchy of Carniola and the Habsburg lands, and in the sixteenth century Ottoman raiders reached the district several times.

Carters on the road between Ljubljana and Trieste filled the lower town, and after the castle burned in 1689 a lower manor house grew up in the town centre. Beside the town the Pivka vanishes into Postojna Cave, where visitors had signed the walls since 1213. In 1818 the guide Luka Čeč found a new part of the cave, and the visit of Archduke Ferdinand in 1819 made it a famous sight.