mine museum

Podzemlje Pece mines is one of several mining industrial heritage sites in Slovenia (along with Idrija and Velenje). The organisers kit you out with a jacket, hard-hat, LED lamp and audio guide if you want one. The experience offers a memorable carriage (plan for dark & bumpy but quite exciting!!) ride 3km inside the Karavanke mountains and into hundreds of years of lead mining history and technique, which is well explained by the guides. There is a recently built visitor centre and museum complex which is well worth a visit, and quite family friendly. Just take a little care with the sign-posts to get you onto the site and in the right door. Highly recommended.

we spent a morning discovering the tunnels of the Mezica mines. One floor is reserved for the bikers - and it was a great experience. We came there be Nomadbike, Koros, a bikers place not far away.The historical part was the best. It was insightful to learn about the Austrian influence, the Yugoslawian period and the good and bad changes since the fall of the iron curtain and the independence of Slowenia.If you ar not into sports, a train will bring you into the mine, on another floor.If you are water oriented, canoening is offered on the lowest level.

Everything is great about the Podzemlje Pece mines. For starters the staff is extremely nice. We walked in on a Tuesday morning, not knowing what to expect from these mines or tours. Unfortunately, the bike tour was not until that afternoon. At 11am there was a guided tour but this was prebooked by a large group. After a nice chat with the lady behind the bar, we decided to just have some tea and visit the museum. Then a very nice lady came to us to explain something about the possibilities to see the mines and we could easily tell that she was very passionate about the mines. She recommended to join the large group, even though they were all school kids. And so we waited for two hours which was absolutely no problem since the sun was shining and people from the museum were so kind to us. When the bunch of kids arrived, several members of the staff still had eyes for us and so they told us what to wear and to do. Fully equipped, we climbed into one of the many tiny waggons and that is where our adventure really began. Complete darkness for about 15 minutes, feeling like this train is running 120 km/h into the cave system. But nothing whatsoever... 12 km/h max! The tour was exiting and there is a lot to see underground. We enjoyed it big time. We were very happy with this opportunity of course, though we recommend to make a seperate reservation in order to go with a guide that speaks English or German. Since the school kids were from Slovenia, we had to just look around and listen to the short explanation from the staff, whenever they had the time to do so (of course, the kids were their main concern). Bottemline is to say that a visit is really worthwile and for € 9 pp extremely I think it's extremely cheap. Go ahead and have fun!

Don't miss this experience. A visit in an underground mine you'll never forget. Not very close to other popular location in Slovenia (but slovenia is small..), it deserves a visit. An underground adventure, with the original miner's train will bring you in the earth of the mountain, where the old underground works are perfectly preserved and completely safe.