Because of its large areas of limestone Italy has some of the most spectacular cave systems in the world. It’s reckoned, for example, that the cavities inside the Apuan Alps which rise to the west of our Serchio valley are some of the most extensive anywhere on Earth (or rather, in Earth!). Anyone who has been to this part of the world and missed taking at least one of the three separate itineraries inside the Grotta Del Vento is truly missing something exceptional.
The Grotta Del Vento’s web site is at http://www.grottadelvento.com/ENG/home.aspx.
Italian speleologists, true experts in their field, have done much to discover and explore unknown cave systems; it is terrible that two of them out of an expedition of four, Oskar Piazza and Gigliola Mancinelli, have lost their lives, as a result of the Nepal earthquake.
Those caves with some of the largest natural halls in the world are in an area which was formerly Italian but which was lost after the treaties concluding World War II. They are the caves of Postumia, now in Slovenia and locally known as “Postojnska jama”.
The area round the caves is exceptionally pretty.
Postumia caves extend for twenty kilometres and have been known since they were inhabited by humans in prehistoric times, although they were only described for the first time in the eighteenth century. In 1884 Postumia were the first caves in the world to be lit by electricity and have ever since proved to be a very popular tourist attraction. I was lucky to have visited them in April 2007 (when this post’s photographs were taken) and my wife had visited them when they were still in Yugoslavia.
The photographs of long departed royalty show some of the visitors who preceded us in the last century.
A railway inside the caves was installed in 1872 and Postumia are the only caves to have one. Here is an example of former rolling stock.
The system has, clearly, since been updated and we seated ourselves comfortably in open carriages ready for our ride into the bowels of the earth which was taken at, what seemed to me, break-neck speed. I would have liked it to be rather slower so that I could appreciate the limestone formations more clearly.
Here are three videos of that journey:
We did, however, have ample time to admire the amazing stalactite and stalagmite formations, some of which were of massive dimensions, during the second, walking, part of our itinerary.
The caves house two unique species of fauna: a blind amphibian called Proteus Anquinus with a pretty pink coloration, and a beetle, Leptodirus Hohenwart, presumably blind too.
I wasn’t impressed by the food at the restaurant at the entrance to the caves, although the ambience was rather baronial. Was it mediocre catering or was Slovenian food just not as tasty as Italian cuisine?
The caves’ temperature is a constant eight degrees with high humidity so bring some warmer clothes if you are visiting them in summer!
More information is available at the caves’ web site at http://www.postojnska-jama.eu/en/