Predjama castle is a renaissance castle and it was a family estate of Knight Erazem, none less than Slovenian Robin Hood, the robber baron. According to the legend Erazem ended up in Predjama when he fled from the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, after killing Marshall Pappencheim. He apparently found an ally in the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus and began to attack Habsburg estates. But back to the castle and it’s story: for a year and a day Erazem was kept ‘captive’ in his fortress, and his enemies – who had planned to starve him to death – could just not figure out how he managed to get food and supplies without them noticing. What they didn’t know was that there was a secret passage, a natural shaft leading from the castle all the way to Postojna. Erazem had the passage enlarged, and it made it possible for him to come in and out of the castle as he pleased. I am wandering ever since we were there, why didn’t he run away? He should have, because it was only a question of time when someone of his servants would betray him…somehow it always happens, right? He went with a bang, hit by a cannonball while taking a dump! What an ending! Entrance to Erazem’s Tunnel is possible even today (though not in winter, when the colony of bats living there is taking their well deserved hibernation) for the fit and the brave.
