Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Around
Buses from Ljubljana to Koper and the coast stop at Divača (€7.90, 1½ hours, half-
hourly). Other destinations include Postojna (€3.60, 30 minutes) and Murska Sobota
(€23.20, six hours) via Maribor and Celje. For Croatia, there are daily buses to Poreč and
Rovinj (€14.40, four hours) from June to September. The bus stop is next to the train sta-
tion.
Divača is on the rail line to Ljubljana (€7.30, 1½ hours, hourly) , with up to five trains a
day to Koper (€4.05, 50 minutes) via Hrpelje-Kozina.
The Škocjan Caves are about 5km by road southeast of the Divača train station - the
route is signed. A courtesy van normally meets incoming Ljubljana trains several times a
day, but wasn't running when we most recently visited.
LIPICA
05 / POP 100 / ELEV 403M
The impact of Lipica, some 9km southwest of Divača and 2km from the Italian border,
has been far greater than its tiny size would suggest. This tiny village lives for and on its
snow-white Lipizzaner horses, which were first bred here for the Spanish Riding School
in Vienna in the late 16th century.
History
In 1580 Austrian Archduke Charles founded a stud farm here for the imperial court in Vi-
enna. Andalusian horses from Spain were coupled with the local Karst breed that the Ro-
mans had once used to pull chariots - and the Lipizzaner was born. But they weren't quite
the sparkling white horses we know today. Those didn't come about for another 200 years
when white Arabian horses got into the act.
The breed has subsequently become scattered - moved to Hungary and Austria after
WWI, to the Sudetenland in Bohemia by the Germans during WWII, and then shipped off
to Italy (along with the studbooks) by the American army in 1945. Only 11 horses re-
turned when operations resumed at Lipica in 1947.
Today some 400 Lipizzaners remain at the original stud farm while others are bred in
various locations around the world, including Piber in Austria, which breeds the horses for
the Spanish Riding School. Everyone claims theirs is the genuine article - patriotic Slove-
nia even has a pair of Lipizzaners on the reverse side of its €0.20 coin.
