Hello guys,

Today, I would like to show you a giant cave in Italy.
It is called Grotta Gigante or Briška Jama in Slovenian (->map).
This cave is not far from the Slovenian border and just a few kilometers from the city of  Opicina.

I went to visit “Grotta Gigante” in February 2018.
Many time, when I was driving near “Opicina“, I saw signposts indicating the direction of the cave.
I asked many of my slovenian friends if any of them had already visited that cave.
They all answered “No”. It was a bit hard for me to understand.
Many of them live (here, in the “Karst” region) have already visited the “Postojna cave” or the “Škocjan cave” (in Slovenia).
“Postojna cave” is very very popular in Slovenia and “Škocjan cave” is on the Unesco list of natural and cultural world heritage sites.
But from here, where we live (near “Komen“), those 2 caves are a little bit far (53 km and 37 km).
But “Grotta Gigante” is only 19 km away from us.
Since nobody in my entourage seemed to be interested in visiting this well known cave in Italy, I went there alone.
It took me just 23 minutes to go there by car.

The parking for visitors is about 100 meters before the entrance of the cave.
Park your car there and continue on foot.

When you’ll arrive in front of the cave’s entrance,
you’ll see machines and computers (hidden under white metal boxes) in the esplanade facing the entrance of the cave.
Those computers are connected to cables (going down deep in the cave) and they collect many scientific datas.
The O.G.S (Istituto Nazionale Di Oceanografia E Di Geofisica Sperimentale ->National institute Of Oceanography and Of Experimental Geophysics)
use those datas to monitor earthquake with an extreme precision.
The university of Trieste and the O.G.S have also been using the cave for decades to perform scientific researches.

At 10 A.M sharp, I entered the building and I paid 12 € to visit the cave.
I was the last to arrive for the guided tour.
Other people had already purchased their tickets and they were ready to start the tour.
We were a group of about 15 to 20 people.
Before getting down in the cave, a female employee controlled our tickets.
I was the last in the queue. She looked at me straight in the eyes and she told me “NO PICTURES”.
Since she told me that, I assumed she also told it to the others just before me.
I noded to show her that I understood (that taking pictures inside the cave is not allowed).

We all started getting down in the cave.
There’s about 500 steps to take to get down to the bottom and about 500 steps to go back up towards another exit.
Thanks god, I read that info before on internet, so I was already mentally prepared for that.

After 3 minutes, we could already see how big the cave was.
Our guide stopped for the first time and started to explain the story of the cave.
Then, something funny happened.
I saw many people of my group starting to take pictures.
I was like “What ? The Lady (up there) told us NO PICTURES“.
The more I thought about it, the more people were taking pictures.
I felt like I was back in school, in a class full of very undisciplined pupils.
So what did I do ???
That’s right, I started taking pictures too …in solidarity with my group.
The tour guide did not looked offended by that so we kept taking pictures untill the end of the tour.

My first impression of the cave was… “Woah, this cave is huge”.
The cave is not as vaste as “Postojna cave” (in Slovenia) but I thing the central caverne of “Grotta Gigante” is higher.
From the bottom to the top, it is almost 100 meters.
I can tell you that when you are inside, at the bottom of the cave, that it very quite impressive.
You feel very very little.

The tour lasted about 1h15 minutes.
Our guide was a very nice woman.
She explained us a lot about the cave and its history.
Most of people in the group were italians.
Only a german couple and my goodself did not understand Italian.
Our guide first explained everything in italian and then switched to english for those who didn’t understand italian.

After 1 hour  and 5 minutes in the cave, we started taking the stairs towards another exit.
Ooooh my God…500 steps … again !
The first explorators of the cave actually used that same exit to go down in the cave in 1840.

All in all, visiting this cave turned out to be a very nice experience.
We really learned a lot. I almost felt like I was back in school.
The cave is 167 meters long, 76 meters wide, 98 meters high and its maximal depth is 113 meters.
Thanks to its dimensions, this cave entered the Guinness book of record in 1995.
It was first explored in 1840 by Antonio Frederico Lindner.
He was searching for underground water of the “Timova” river to provide water to the booming city of Trieste.
If you go visit “Grotta Gigante” one day, you’ll learn a lot more and you’ll have a lot of fun.

 

My tips for Grotta Gigante:

1/ Ask the tour guide to translate in english if you don’t speak Italian.
2/ Go with your kids if they are old and strong enough to climb stairs.
3/ Do not hesitate to ask questions to the guide.
4/ You can get (for free) a paper with all infos about the cave in many languages at the entrance.
5/ Go visit the Temple of Monte Grisa (4 km away).
6/ Go visit the city of Opicina (4 km away).