Vilenica Cave or Vilenica Cave at Lokev is the oldest show cave in Europe. The first tourists to the cave were recorded in 1633. It is located next to the village of Lokev in the municipality of Sežana on the Karst Plateau in southwestern Slovenia. Until the mid-19th century it was known as the biggest, most beautiful, and most frequently visited cave of the Classical Karst. Later it was surpassed by Postojna Cave. Vilenica Cave is more than 1,300 metres in length, with a depth of 180 m , but tourists are only allowed into the first 450 m of the cave. Since 1986, the annual international literary Vilenica International Literary Festival has taken place in the cave and in the towns and villages of the Karst and elsewhere. The event most commonly happens in the beginning of September. The central part of the festival is the conferral of the Vilenica Prize for literature by the Slovene Writers' Association. The award is bestowed in the cave's Plesna Hall on an author from Central Europe for his or her achievements in literary and essay writing. In 2010, the prize winner was the Bosnian writer, essayist, and literary critic Dževad Karahasan.
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