Idrija is full of surprises: We drove there as a day trip from Ljubljana. It is about a one-hour drive through gorges and on curvy streets and then you arrive in a modern, not very appealing industrial town at the confluence of the rivers Idrijca and Nikova. Since the site was in a working state up to the 90s of the last century not much of the 500-year-old industrial history is visible on first sight. Most prominent is the miners church on a hill (mostly closed) and adjacent to it a tiny “sacred mountain” with equally tiny chapels.
 
But there are quite many things to see and it turned out that a day trip is fare too short to cover it all. I found it very hard to figure out opening times beforehand so it was not easy to figure out the best way and order to explore the different sites:
There are two big museum and at least two small ones, that have opening times:
The town museum in the “castle” and the rather new museum in the 20th century smelting plant, further the old Antony mine and the Kamst/pump.
Since the town museum had longer opening hours we went first to the Smelting plant: The modern reception building seemed abandoned but there was big hall with an exhibition about mercury and we started looking at the displays. What seemed first a bit dry and complex turned out to be very fascinating: Nobody of us was aware what important mercury was and how incredibly versatile its use. Just to give a few examples from my memory:
It is indispensable for the mining of gold and silver. More to that later.
It is used for all kind of meters: Thermometers, hygrometers, seismic measuring, to measure the density of elements and many others.
It is used for the surface of telescopes.
It was used for pigments, especially for red paint.
In past eras they used it for medical purposes i.e. against syphilis (that I new since many composers and poets died of mercury poisoning)
It was also used for beauty products i.e. to brighten your skin
And many more.
There is also a second section about the history of mining in Idrija and about working conditions. This is rather depressing since the work was very hard and poisonous: Especially the men died got often sick and died young. They show also by infrared films that mercury evaporates in room temperature what contributes greatly to its poisonous dangers. The show also how the economic situation varied greatly over the decades and centuries depending on two big factors: Firstly on the global demand for mercury which grew enormously when the Spanish discovered gold and silver in the new world and needed literally tons of mercury to gain it and secondly on the purity of the ore which varied greatly too: While in the beginning the had ore with a mercury content of 50 percent in the end they had to work with or with less then one per mille!
 
After quite a while the museum lady appeared. I did not quite figure out where she had been but it turned out that she was at the same time the ticket lady, the guard and the guide for the tour through the plant. So we looked at the displays until the tour started and it was just she and the three of us. We looked at the different kind of machinery: the aerial cableway that brought the ore to the plant, machines which crushed the ore, conveyor belts, the one remaining of previously four blast furnaces etc. All of them were big and impressive and so rusty that you thought they had been out of use for much longer then they are.
Since the ticket was automatically a double ticket with the Anthony mine we went not to the castle as I had planned but to the mine. This is the oldest building in town and it serves as an entrance to the mine that you can visit only with a tour. To be honest I was not so excited to visit the mine since I had seen several of the even within the last year but my friends wanted to see what they had already paid for.
While the mine was similar to other mines it turned out that the information given by the lady guide was very interesting. I will quote a few that I remember. I tried to verify some of them but I was not always successful.
-       The network of mines was so extended that some workers needed five hours just to arrive at there working place
-       Miners thought they could flush out the poison of mercury but drinking alcohol which made the families even poorer then they were anyway
-       Men died so young that women often married two or three times (and much younger men, it seems)
-       Men earned so little that women had to make extra money. The most famous way was lace making and Idrija was and is very famous for this. The women and their helping children sometimes made several times as much money that way as their husbands/fathers in the mines! The still teach this and supposedly nowadays the boys win all the lace making competitions.
-       The soil around idrija is so poisonous that they could not grow their own food but had to import at high costs.
-       Mercury evaporates but we cannot smell it. They tried to bring cats and other animals into the mine as an alarm signal against mercury gas but they always panicked and ran out of the mine.
-       There are no animals AT ALL in the entire mine. Recently, twenty years after closing the mine the first spider was seen somewhere.
-       Idrija was so important that it was directly subordinated to Vienna. The Habsburgs made three quarters of their export by mercury from Idrija. A truly unbelievable number.
-       While the mine was closed in the 90s because it was unprofitable now the demand for mercury has risen again and it could be profitable even considering the very bad ore. When I asked her what it what used for she refused an answer but hinted that it was used for very bad purposes and the US was interested.
 
When we came out of the mine it was too late we had to decide if we wanted to see the castle museum, the Kamst, the Wild Lake or to get some impression of the Klavze, the water barriers in the woods around Idrija. Since it was getting dark we decided to drive to the nearest Klavze. We passed the Kamst and the Wild Lake but it was already almost dark so we didn’t stop and drove on to the Klavže na Belci. Partly we drove on small tarred streets but then it changed to sandy even smaller streets. When we arrived at the barrier we got a good impression of the height and the compactness of this construction that was used to dam up water to flood much need tree trunks from far away to Idrija. Definitely nothing for people with vertigo. Both the buildings and the surrounding landscape with deep gorges deserve more time and exploration then we could give them that day. The car is definitively not the right means to explore them since you cant really appreciate the landscape and since the paths will be muddy and dangerous if the get wet. I don’t even know if it is possible to drive on to the further barriers since the path seemed to get smaller and worse. Hiking or mountain biking seems a better choice.
 
While the town turned out to be very interesting despite its homely appearance here in the valleys is some wild beauty to find combined with impressive constructions. To see the museums and attractions and to do some hiking we would have needed at least a day and half instead of the half day we actually had. I will be happy to go back to explore a few Klavze in daylight and see the big pump.