Underground Bunker II

Big hall
Canon EOS20, EF-S 10-22, 1/60s, f/3.5, ISO 800, flash
Yesterday evening we went to see an underground bunker build for political elite arround 1950. The second one is located nearby, but it was impossible to find the entrance in the dark if you don't know exactly where it is.

The bunker

With more than 500 meters of 2 meter wide and 3 meter high concrete corridors and several side halls the bunker looks quite impressive. The biggest hall (on the picture) is over 30 meters long, 7 meters wide and 7 meters high (we did not measure it). At the far end the bunker rises towards the surface and looks like a mine shaft with collapsed wooden supports. It is dangerous part of the bunker and I don't recommend you venture there as the ceiling can collapse. The construction was abandoned before it was finished. Rumors goes that because of problems with underground water.

Cave life

We could see several grasshoppers and bats hanging from the ceiling, but our torches were not very strong to search for smaller animals. There were also tiny roots hanging from the ceiling at the very end of the bunker. Most probably it comes close to the surface.

Cave formations

The water is slowly leaking trough the ceiling and walls therefore several cave formations started to form. In the last 50 years they had some time to grow, but are still relatively young in comparison to those in nature caves.

Occasionally there was calcareous sinter on the ground and first traces of stalactites. On the ceiling there were many up to 25 cm spaghetti stalactite. We've found also one cave pearl.

Human influence

The bunker gets some visitors from time to time and they leave some trace. Luckily we haven't met anyone yesterday as this would be quite a surprise for everybody. We could find some branches, broken glass and beer cans lying on the floor. There were also several graffiti on the walls.

The two bunkers are located close to Ljubljana, between Javor and Pance. There was also an article in Nedeljski dnevnik in 2001, which is available here. On the same link you can find more detailed map of the bunkers.