Both my guide, Uroš Eržen, and I, crouching to avoid the tunnel’s low roof, noticed a sparrow-sized black bird flitting around the cavern as water from the river above filtered through porous rock, dripping onto our rain slickers and hard hats. It wasn’t a canary, and it wasn’t a coal mine; but could it have meant something anyway?

We were a few steps down from the entrance to Anthony’s Mine Shaft (Antonijev rov), five centuries old and the earliest part of an extensive tunnel network -- over 800 kilometers in all -- below Idrijja. A few minutes earlier I’d begun my tour in the street-level chamber where miners once gathered for roll call; visitors now sit on benches in this room and watch a slide-projector introductory film on what lies below, once one of the world’s largest mercury mines.

As Slovene tourist destinations go, Idrija, a town of seven thousand, is usually considered an afterthought, if it’s thought of at all. It’s 20 kilometers to the north of the more celebrated Karst area, and just a bit farther from the laid-back coast; to the north lie the Alpine beauties of Bovec, and to the west, near the Italian border, the rustic charms of the Goriška Brda wine country. Idrija sits on the edge of the Idrija Fault, which separates Slovenia’s subalpine region from the porous Karst. The surroundings are a geologist’s playground; the land here is a study in soil erosion, with scores of pines lying tumbled roots over teakettle into roadside ditches.

At first glance, beyond its attractive setting in a basin surrounded by high hills and low mountains, Idrija may not overly impress. But, like nature itself, its treasures like to hide. To understand Idrija, one must know that it is or was a source place for two materials that couldn’t be more diverse: mercury, from the mine, and snow-white bobbin lace – lace for purists – from a centuries-old tradition taught at home and in a famed school. In short, masculine and feminine principles are epitomized in Idrija; the town has yin-yang out the yin-yang. From here came both a dangerous substance extracted by men in a dangerous occupation, from dark tunnels below earth; and lace, knit in intricate patterns by women’s hands from white cotton thread in the sunlight. It’s a poetic balance that endows Idrija with authenticity from head to tail. To journey here is to make a humble but rewarding pilgrimage to the beauty inherent in real things. As a bonus, since the town isn’t inundated with tourists, the locals are unfailingly gracious and you might feel you’ve stumbled on an undiscovered gem – which wouldn’t be far wrong.

Idrija, which has the low-key, almost somnolent vibe one finds in any smallish Slovene town, has an idiot-proof street layout: the town core is shaped like a short, fat fish, with bulbous, 16th-century Gewerkenegg Castle (Grad Gewerkenegg, former mine HQ) as the tail. Points of interest start at the junction of the Idrija and Nikova rivers and run in a more or less straight line down to the decent Idrija Town Museum, located in Gewerkenegg.

Mercury was the reason Idrija existed to begin with. Even the town’s name derives from the Latin term for mercury, Hydrargirum, and the town seal features the familiar figure of the Roman messenger god poised on tiptoe. The liquid metal was discovered here in 1490; in 1508, when ore rich in cinnabar crystals (a mixture of 20 percent sulfur and 80 percent mercury) was also found, the mine boomed and Idrija went along for the ride. Miners, who were paid wages substantially higher than the regional average, and their managers flocked here from as far away as the Czech and German lands, all then under the Austro-Hungarian umbrella.

At its peak, Idrija was the second largest mercury mine on earth, after Almaden, Spain. Eventually, it yielded up 13 percent of all the mercury ever mined anywhere: 150,000 tons. Not without a human cost: mercury is, of course, a toxic substance. Prolonged exposure to high levels, either as vapors or absorbed through skin, can result in nervous system damage, including mental disturbances, loss of balance, speech, vision and hearing problems, even comas and death. (There is a large psychiatric hospital on the northern edge of town; one assumes the siting wasn’t purely accidental.) Lung diseases were also a danger. In the mine’s earlier years, a man could only labor five to seven years below ground before becoming too ill to continue.

In the 19th century the town became a scientific research center, drawing doctors who came to study and treat the afflicted miners. Innovative technological and technical projects were carried out in the area, such as the huge stone water barriers called klavže, built to help bring timber downstream, which still exist today. (The 19th-century New Idria mercury mine in California was named for the Slovene model; old Idrija has fared far better than the New Idria settlement, which has long been a ghost town.)

But all that’s history. In the 1970s, awareness of mercury’s health risks widened; in the ‘80s, the bottom dropped out of the market. Five centuries after the first shovels crunched into the earth, only about 100 kilometers of tunnels remained open. From a peak of 1200, only about 110 workers were left by 2000, their job being only to prepare to close up shop for good. Ore is no longer extracted. Over the next decade, Uroš informed me, all 15 of the mine’s levels will be sealed; some of the galleries will be filled with water, some with concrete, to prevent the town from sinking beneath the massive excavations.

The mine tour goes out of its way to entertain, with several surprises along the way; kids shouldn’t be bored. The mine comes with its own legendary dwarf, named Berkmandels, who, when in the mood, tapped on stones to lead miners the way to rich cinnabar veins. (The miners left him bits of food to stay on his good side.) Along the way, one encounters Berk himself, sort of (he lights up, he laughs).

The tour ends in the simple, perfect miners’ chapel, which took 15 years to carve out of the rock during the middle of the 18th century. It was a civil chapel, Uroš points out; affiliated with no church, it was simply a place for the miners to stop after their labors to give thanks for another uneventful journey below.

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The lace school (Čipkarska šola) is in the center of things. Right next to Town Hall, it’s housed in a handsome, solid three-story edifice of ivory-colored stone that mercury profits built back in 1876. Idrija isn’t the only Slovene town with a lace school, but this, the country’s largest and best-known, is the acknowledged center of Slovene lacemaking. Outside the school secretary’s office hang framed examples of lace from Malta, Finland, Portugal, Belgium and Italy; Slovenia’s style, whirling in intricate, hypnotic patterns, most closely resembles the Italian, and is in no way inferior to it or any other.

The history of Idrija lacemaking dates back over 300 years, when it was brought over by the wives of German and Czech mine workers and managers. To this day, starting at age six or younger, just about all of Idrija’s women learn the craft to some degree. The lace school teaches both pre-school and grade-school girls, and also runs adult programs. Boys in the lace school aren’t unheard of, but, as one might expect, are very rare (and undoubtedly, thick-skinned).

The teacher, Dragica Česnik, darts from desk to desk among the eight small girls, working in pairs in the clean, modern classroom, intently clicking seven pairs of wooden bobbins around a long pillow on which their effort rests. All use white cotton thread, with finer needles for finer work (colored thread is seldom used, and then mainly for items intended for export).

*****

History and tradition aside, Idrija is also a contemporary town with a private life of its own. A flyer posted on a wall advertises, in English, a local house-party rave ("BE THERE OR YOU WILL REGRET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE"). That weird, huge yellow postmodern structure at the river junction that looks like a central mail sorting center is, in fact, a middle school. Neat A-frame houses are built into the sides of hills, on many levels, forming a neat symmetry with the warrens below ground. Besides lace and tourism, modern Idrija and its surrounding towns are home to several large manufacturers of electric motors, air-conditioner parts and furniture; less celebrated and dramatic industries than mining, but undoubtedly healthier.

Idrija is also home to my favorite piece of Central European statuary. You can have your elaborate plague pillars: I’ll take Idrija’s modest fountain topped with a perfect little statue of a 19th-century miner, pickaxe and hammer in hand. All the town needs is a companion monument celebrating the Unknown Lacemaker, waiting for her man.

Back in the mine, ascending towards daylight, cool blasts of air hitting our faces along with water dripping through the roof, Uroš and I again noticed the black bird flitting around. It declined to follow us. Perhaps it felt it was already home.

Idrija is 56 km (35 miles) from Ljubljana, and easily visited as a day trip from the capital or as a stop en route to other points. If you lack your own wheels, the reasonably priced public bus takes 75 to 80 minutes from LJ (you might want to take along some motion sickness tablets, as there are many twists and turns along the way).

Upon arriving in Idrija, stop off at the helpful tourist information office at Lapajnetova 7 (tel. 386-5-377-3898) for directions; you can buy a map there that contains good info on local attractions, but isn’t absolutely necessary to find your way around. Near the end of August, Idrija hosts an annual lacemaking festival, which is a fine opportunity to buy directly from the crafters.

For a place of this size, the dining opportunities are uncommonly good. The tolar-conscious should head for the Pivnica Kos, a straightforward, old-fashioned local hangout where a large plate of the local delicacy, žlikrofi, Slovene-style ravioli filled with potatoes, chives and a bit of bacon (inevitably described as “savory”) and an accompanying salad costs less than four US dollars. A good place for a splurge is the restaurant in the inn sitting squarely atop the tourist mine, the Gostišče Barbara (owned by the Schlosshotels chain, which also runs the five-star Kenda Mansion hotel/restaurant in nearby Spodnja Idrija).

Gewerkenegg Castle/Idrija Town Museum: Prelovčeva 9, Idrija, tel. (386-5) 372-66-00. Open every day 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Holds the title of “Best European museum of technical and industrial heritage, 1997” and contains lively exhibits, especially relating to mercury.

Lace school (Čipkarska sola): in the Gimnazija Jurija Vege, Prelovčeva 2, Idrija. Call (386-5) 377-13-13 to reserve a guided tour (if you don’t speak Slovene and no English speaker is around at the school, try out your Italian or German). Or e-mail [email protected]. The school has a Slovene-only web site at http://www.s-gimjvi.ng.edus.si/cipkarska1.html

Tours of the tourist mine (Antonijev rov) are held on weekends and holidays at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and last 90 minutes; to arrange for other times, call (386-5) 372-27-03 or fax (386-5) 377-11-42, or e-mail Martina Pelihan at [email protected]

Gostišče Barbara (The Barbara Inn): Kosovelova 3, 5208 Idrija (directly atop the mine shaft), tel. (386-5) 377-11-62. This is a charming, well-run place with a very appealing downstairs restaurant; prices are above average for the area, but the location alone is worth it.

*****          

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