CHARACTERISTICS:
 

Tour length:	280 m
Superelevation:	35 m
Tour duration:	40 minut
Number of steps:	320
Air temperatur:	7-9°C
Air humidity:	84-95%

THE CAVE TOUR

The cave tour continues with a descent via a wooden staircase to Klenotnice (Treasury). Its snowy walls are corroded into extraordinarily rugged spaces and small cavities. They are similar to stone foam with ledges that in some parts verge into pea-like or fruticose outgrowths covered with lustrous crystals of pure calcite. They were named “Turold decoration,” which can be found in no other cave in the Czech Republic. Some visitors feel like they are walking on a coral seabed. Síň U Žraločí tlamy (Shark Jaws Hall) follows. It is dominated by the stone formation after which it was named. The hole on the right leads to Bludiště (Labyrinth). It is bordered with fragments of stone organ. The ceiling, which turns into an 8 m long chimney, appeared in the movie “Třetí skoba pro Kocoura” (“The Third Piton for Kocour”). Then we descend the stone stairs to Netopýří dóm (Bat Dome). The discoverers named it after a colony of sleeping bats and even now about 250 horseshoe bats and other bats winter here. The snowy-white ceilings of the dome are covered with brownish stains caused by iron oxides and with small black dots caused by manganese oxides. Netopýří dóm is one of the main crossings of cave corridors. A short connecting corridor leads from here to Síň konce (End HallEnd Hall). A small exhibition introduces bones of the mammoth, extinct buffalo, prehistoric horse and bear found in quarried caves in the Turold Hill, together with Mesozoic fossils of bivalves and gastropods from the Pálava Hills. The staircase then continues from Netopýří dóm to Pohádková síň (Fairytale Hall). It is decorated by partly weathered dolomitized sections of limestones with their bizarre shapes resembling various figures. Small visitors especially will enjoy seeing the Madonna, a body-builder, a dog, a hockey goalkeeper, a ruin of a castle, etc. The bottom of these spaces is filled with white limestone sand, which is unusual in caves. The last stop where you can descend from Netopýří dóm through a 7 m deep shaft is Jezerní dóm (LakeDome). Visitors to this biggest space of the cave tour stand 37 m below the entrance level. The dome is periodically flooded when the level of the underground water swells, which forms several impressive emerald green lakes here.