A lot of people come to Green Slovenia having maybe heard of just one large cave and join the crowds to visit what is a most spectacular world attraction..

But what if you knew there were over 15,000 more discovered caves here.. with over 30 other show caves you can choose to visit and then this one, Dimnice, which is probably, the most complete cave in the world..

What if we also told you Dimnice cave is where winter smoke rises from the massive 40m spiral entrance and is described by locals as "the Devil's barbeque".. well you might want to visit that one?

This is a perfect example of what we mean when we say.. this is Green Slovenia baby..

But there is even more mystery to be solved here in one corner of Slovenia's most secret & unknown Green Paradises, the Brkini mini region.. just a 30 min drive from the Lodge!

St Martins Church in Slivje..

What if we also told you that the cave runs 8km under Slivje, (Plum village) where there is a very pretty church, hiding a massive WW2 secret..

You might have heard of another stunning Medieval church protected by a castle and filled with Medieval frescoes depicting the extremely rare "Dance of Death" story.. which is totally unmissable on your Green Slovenian adventures..

We were told the brave artist was given a cow by the villagers for this painting job, the equivalent of a car nowadays..

But there is more than one church with some stunning and completely unexpected frescoes hidden inside..

If you come here with the Dimnice cave guide, he or she will have access to the keys of St Martins Church and can show inside and where to look, but if you come alone you might still be lucky and the church could be open..

Look very carefully indeed and then look some more at the numerous frescoes painted high up in the heavens of the church.. hiding secret anti Fascist WW2 messages and then step back into history..

St Martins Church in Slivje is a beauty with a big, big secret inside..

The artist AND all the villagers would most probably have been executed and the village burnt down by the occupiers if they had noticed the incredibly profound meanings hidden in the colours and faces of the huge frescoes

This was incredibly brave resistance in plain sight and when you see it and then REALLY see it, the hairs on the back of your neck will stand on end!

We will only show one of the frescoes in detail, so you can see the powerful symbolism of the bad guys in red, white and green..

You see, in a supreme act of defiance and bravery, the villagers paid the artist the price of a cow to paint the bad guys in Fascist red white and green colours and depict evil faces inside these frescoes and biblical scenes!

In Green Slovenia, just like the caves, you might not see or know it, but so much history is all around you and so thick you can cut it with a knife!

Dimnice, Devil's Barbecue Cave..       

You won't immediately spot Dimnice cave.. it's hidden very well inside a rocky Green Brkini forest. 

But you might see the smoke rising from the depths of the Earth, especially in winter, when the natural smoke condenses up from it's hallows and in the old days, local villagers thought this was the bad man downstairs cooking up some lunch!

As you approach the cave, you can only imagine how the first Italian cave explorers felt when they found this marvellous place.

Wow, what an entrance to a cave..

They used wooden flaming torches and were lowered down on ropes by the locals, who were still very nervous about the Devil inside the cave!

Legend has it that as the very first explorer was gradually lowered into the massive hole on ropes held by the villagers, his calls got deeper and scarier with the cave wall's echo the further down he got, until they believed he had been grabbed by the Devil and they just dropped him and legged it!

Nowadays you don't need to go down on a rope.. unfortunately.. as the most fantastic stone spiral staircase was built for cave visitors to go round and round and down and down into the 40m deep cave mouth!

There were no stairs when the first explorer was lowered down this massive cave mouth on ropes.. then dropped..

Even then, going down these stone steps, your imagination might start to play tricks on you with all the shadows and echoes that will envelop you!

The ONLY way you will get to see inside this amazing cave is to book a tour with a local cave guide and we really wanted to see for ourselves what was down there, so we went with Franzi, a fantastic local guide who has explored caves all over the world..

The entrance hole, chimney, staircase.. whatever you want to call it, is spectacular enough.. Hold back and be the last one to look down the 40m hole as you enter and you can see other cavers' lights on helmets well below as they circle down this amazing staircase, but the WOWS continue as you enter the cave itself..

the cave guide will have the keys to this gate, so if you are not on a tour, it is still worth coming this far to wow at the cave..

The reason Dimnice cave is so special is it has a little bit of everything in one big rocky package.. You can see a river, different types of spectacular dripstones and pretty much every other type of underground Karst formation in the other amazing Slovenian caves, but in Dimnice, you can almost see the lot in one go!

Once inside the cave you explore from cavern to cavern, marvelling at the different types of underground rocks until you reach the river.. 100 metres underground and disgracefully used by the Nazis as a water source, so there is even still an underground pumping station here!

The tour lasts around an hour and a bit and get this.. you can take up to 4 to ten people for the same price AND this will work out much better value than that first well known cave that was mentioned at the very start of this article!

a nice gentle opening descent to the cave leaves you guessing at what adventures are in store..

If you consider you will also be getting a private tour with an expert local caver, with no queues, parking fees or crowds AND the chance to also go see the church above with the amazing frescoes, then you might start to realise why we keep banging on about ALL these amazing Green Secrets here in Green Slovenia!

You can also do longer 4-8 hour tours here all year round along the river or another 4 hour adventure, deeper into the caves, with 10 different bat species and even more incredible drip stone formations.

You only realise you have crossed this bridge when you look back, fortunately..

If you are lucky, your guide can also take you to see that secret church and we also followed Franzi by car a few KMs more to get VIP access to another very secret cave with the only underground church in Slovenia, next to a stunning Venetian castle on the edge of a high cliff!

The incredible vista at Socerb castle persuaded the Venetians to actually build a castle to watch the whole Bay of Trieste and nowadays look over three countries.. Italy, Slovenia and Croatia!

We often tip our guests to stop off here on the short daytrip down to the Adriatic coast and the castle is easy to find and admire, but the cave is locked and hidden away in the forest behind, so you do need the guide to open it up and let you explore..

Socerb Castello is a rare Venetian castle with stunning views over the Bay of Trieste..

The cave was not only used as a church, it also has a wine cellar, so is well worth a visit to finally complete your unexpected tour!

With time for a cup of coffee you will have already seen some amazing Green nuggets, but this is why a holiday in Green Slovenia is so unbeatabubble, cos you will STILL have half this amazing day out to explore even more Green secrets!!

You are so close to the delights and variety of the Slovenian Riviera here, so maybe complete your day out with some time by the seaside, or maybe you might pop down to the Italian seaside and follow one of our other little tips about Muggia?!

Maybe you will be peckish first, so you also need to know you are also just a stone's throw, (and there are really a lot of rocks here to throw if you want to) from what we describe as the Hog Roast Road in one direction and more culinary delights of the Brkini, including a very unexpected, but excellent Michelin starred restaurant just 5 mins back into the village of RODIK from the Dimnice cave!!

a long bumpy stone track leads to a big car park, surrounded by trees.. you would never guess Dimnice cave hides down here..

And remember that medieval fortress church we mentioned with the Dance of Death frescoes and other delights painted on ALL 4 walls of the church? Well Hrastovlje Fortress Church is just around the corner from here and gateway to yet another secret route into the Slovenian Coastal Hinterland..

Wow, all this just cos you fancied clicking on an article on a mysteriously named cave.. but that is Green Slovenia for you.. so many Secret Green Places to see and so many wonderful decisions to make!