Caves of Han-sur-Lesse
Grotten van Han
Interesting facts
- Since 1963 divers have been excavating the riverbed at the Trou de Han, where the Lesse leaves the cave, recovering thousands of ancient objects.
- Most finds from the underwater digs date to the Late Bronze Age, around 1100โ800 BC, including swords, spearheads and an axe that still has its wooden handle.
- More than 200 bronze dress pins have come out of the river at the cave exit, an exceptional concentration for northern Europe.
- Among the treasures pulled from the Lesse is a necklace made of gold discs, now one of the best-known finds from the site.
- A fragment of a Roman military diploma issued under Emperor Trajan in 108 AD was also recovered from the cave's river deposits.
- Traces of human visitors in the caves go back about 10,500 years, to Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
- When the Lesse carries more than about 27 cubic metres per second, the swallow hole cannot take it all, and the river spills into its old bed around the hill.
- The bottom of the Gouffre de Belvaux, 45 metres down, was first reached by a cave diver in September 1964.
- In 2019 cavers spent nine sessions digging through sticky clay to open an air-filled link between the southern network and the navigable underground river.
- The metre-gauge tram that long carried visitors to the entrance opened on 1 June 1906 and was hauled by steam locomotives until 1934.
Why it is worth it
The Caves of Han are the work of a single river. Near the village of Han-sur-Lesse in the Belgian Famenne, the meandering Lesse suddenly disappears into a swallow hole, the Gouffre de Belvaux, and travels under a limestone hill for about a kilometre as the crow flies before reappearing on the other side. Depending on how much water it carries, the journey takes the river anything from two to twenty-eight hours. In dissolving its way through the Devonian limestone it has left behind more than 14 km of known galleries, the longest cave system in Belgium.
People knew the caves long before scientists did: finds from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age show that the entrances were used thousands of years ago, and systematic exploration began in 1771. The largest space on the visitor route is the Salle du Dรดme, and other chambers bear names such as the Salle d'Armes and the Mystรฉrieuses. A tall stalagmite called the Minaret is one of the classic sights. Inside, the air is cool and humid all year.
The guided walk covers about 2 km and 508 steps and lasts well over an hour, with a sound-and-light show about the parts of the network reserved for cavers. For generations the visit ended with a boat ride out through the river's resurgence, but since 2009 visitors leave on footbridges, the boats having become too costly to keep up to modern safety standards. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come each year, making the caves one of the best-known natural attractions in Wallonia.
Getting there
Han-sur-Lesse is part of the municipality of Rochefort, about 16 km from Marche-en-Famenne; the nearest airport is Liรจge (LGG), about 60 km away. TEC bus line 29 links Rochefort-Jemelle railway station, served by trains from Brussels, with the village centre.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Caves of Han-sur-Lesse refers to a natural complex of caves in Belgium. A major Belgian tourist attraction, the caves are located in Wallonia, on the outskirts of the village of Han-sur-Lesse.
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