Lipica, the cradle of the white horses in the heart of the Karst

What you see on a visit to the stud farm

The guided tour lasts an hour and takes in the oldest stable, Velbanca, the carriage exhibition, the Lipikum museum, the church of St Anthony of Padua and the Jubilee stable. Tours run in Slovenian and English, and there is also a digital guide in nine languages for exploring on your own. Your ticket lets you stay all day.

The day follows a set schedule. The stud opens at 9am, the mares go out to pasture at 9:30am and guided tours leave at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. At 3pm there is «Meet the Lipizzan horse», half an hour in which the riders show how they work with the horse, and at the end you can stroke it. It closes at 5pm.

The riding school’s training

What I would not miss is the official training session in the heated arena at 11am. The riders perform the same movements as in the shows, but in a more relaxed way, and at the end you can put questions to the head trainer. The days change with the month. In October 2026 they were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; in April, Tuesday to Saturday; in June and September, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; and in July and August, Wednesday and Thursday only. Photography and filming are not allowed, and dogs cannot enter the arena.

The ticket with training costs €20 for adults in winter, from 2 November 2026 to 25 March 2027; from 7 September to 1 November it was €24. Children aged 1 to 5 pay €1. There are also carriage rides, like those that for centuries linked Trieste and Vienna in three days.

Lipica, cradle of the Lipizzaner

The stud farm was founded in 1580 and is, according to its own website, the largest Lipizzaner stud in the world and the first. In the first year three stallions were bought in Spain and, the following year, 24 mares and six stallions, to cross with the Karst horses, famous since antiquity for their beauty, endurance and strength. The result was one of the oldest horse breeds in Europe.

The Lipizzaners we call white are in fact grey. They are born dark and lighten over time because of a mutated gene. After 1947 Lipica resumed breeding, set up a classical riding school and kept testing its horses in harness, in the traditional way. On 1 December 2022 the tradition of Lipizzaner breeding entered UNESCO’s intangible heritage list, together with seven other countries, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

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Combining Lipica with the Karst

Lipica is a few kilometres from Sežana, and the estate has its own hotel, the Maestoso, and a golf course. I would combine it with Vilenica cave, close by, or with the Škocjan Caves, and for the whole Karst there is the guide to the coast and Karst. The stud farm also has a nine-hole golf course.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Lipica on Booking.com and filter by area before price.