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Cerknica Lake
by Natasa Pavsek
In the heart of the Notranjska, the most distinct Karst landscape
in Slovenia, amidst a polje (Karst field) sheltered from the
south-west by the densely wooded Javorniki Hills, lies the illustrious
Cerknica Lake. It is an intermittent lake, filled up mostly
by the autumn rains and the early spring thaw, which dries up
in May or June, sometimes even in mid-winter. The lake gets
its water from Karst springs bubbling up at its edge, while
the water flows out underground, through sinkholes. Its surface
level varies by over 7 metres (it lies between 546 and 553 metres
above sea level). When the water is low, it spans over 20 square
kilometres but when high waters set in, it is over 10 kilometres
long, almost 5 kilometres wide, its surface area exceeding 30
square kilometres.
The filling up is the most interesting phase in the lake's life
cycle. Water starts bursting forth from vent holes, the streams
rise immediately and flood the field at the bottom of the valley.
When the lake starts receding, the water disappears into picturesque
sinkholes amidst the fields and into swallow-holes, the entrances
to the hollow Karst underground embellished with stalagmites
and stalactites. Some of the outflow water resurfaces at Mo?ilnik,
the source of the Ljubljanica river. The lake is an important
fish habitat as well as a nesting ground for many species of
birds. It is increasingly popular as a recreational area, ideal
for fishing, hiking, nature excursions (speleology), wind surfing,
swimming and ice-skating, depending on the season and the water
level. The constantly changing landscape makes it worthwhile
to visit it in any season.
Stories about the miraculous lake have for centuries inspired
artists whose vivid imagination transformed it into a fable
about the divine and unfathomable; Dante Alighieri saw it this
way in his Divine Comedy. The lake won worldwide fame when the
intermittence mechanism was first described over 300 years ago
by the Slovene polymath, historian, topographer, ethnographer
and sketcher, Baron Janez Vajkard Valvasor (1641-1693), which
earned him membership of the British Royal Society. He also
published a lengthy summary of his description in his most comprehensive
work, The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola.
Article abstracted from Sinfo.
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