The underground trio

Velenje’s Coalmining Museum of Slovenia –

Mežica’s Underworld of Mount Peca – Maribor’s Tezno Zone

Experience the diversity of the days of yore and modern-day adventures in three towns boasting stories that could not make them more different from one another!

The fully restored underground portion of the Coalmining Museum of Slovenia in Velenje enables visitors to experience what everyday work was like for coalminers, who have been descending 160 m underground for centuries in order to resurface with “black gold”.

The various scenes from the miners’ life and work are recreated using 20 exceptional sets and 15 interesting mannequins that come alive with the aid of state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment.

In Carinthia, at Mežica to be precise, a real mine train will take you (donning miners’ equipment) to the heart of the mine, to the Moring sector. The ride through the 3.5 km-long Glančnik gallery is a unique experience that lasts about 15 minutes.

You will alight at the station situated in the core of the mountain 600 m underneath the surface of Veliki vrh Peak.

One of the most important heritage sites in Maribor, the oldest vine in the world, the capital of Slovenian Styria, are the underground tunnels and galleries of Tezno that the occupying German army started digging in 1943 in anticipation of Allied air raids.

15 metres below ground, a total of 8,512 square metres of tunnels were thus created, their purpose being a backup location that would ensure uninterrupted production in the wake of increasingly frequent attacks on the factory.