Frasassi Caves

The Frasassi Caves lie inside the limestone of the Apennines near Genga, in the Marche. The first entrance was found by a farmer in 1948, and cavers from Jesi and Fabriano pushed further in during the 1950s and 1960s, but the discovery that made the name came on 25 September 1971, when a group of speleologists from Ancona led by Giancarlo Cappanera broke into the Grotta Grande del Vento, the Great Cave of the Wind. Its passages run for some 13 km, and the show cave opened to the public in 1974.

What visitors walk into first is the Abisso Ancona, a single chamber roughly 180 by 120 metres in plan and close to 200 metres high — a space large enough that the lights barely reach its roof. Beyond it the cave is crowded with water-made shapes: the Sala delle Candeline takes its name from a field of slim white stalagmites that look like candles, the Sala dell'Infinito from the massive columns that seem to hold the ceiling up, and there are formations known as the organ pipes. Because the system is still wet, much of the stone is actively growing and glistens rather than looking dusty.

The caves have a second life as a laboratory. In 1986 the sociologist Maurizio Montalbini spent 210 days alone underground here in a study of the body's clock, and emerged believing that only 79 days had passed. More recently microbiologists from Penn State have sampled the dark, stringy biofilms growing in underground lakes such as Lago Verde, looking for clues to how life survives without light or oxygen. Near the entrance to the gorge stand two sanctuaries that deserve a detour: Santa Maria infra Saxa, set into the rock face and dating to the 11th century, and the small neoclassical temple of 1828 known as the Tempietto del Valadier.

Getting there

The caves are in the gorge at Frasassi, in the municipality of Genga; the nearest larger town is Fabriano, about 8 km away. Marche Airport (AOI) near Ancona is about 40 km in a straight line. The Genga–San Vittore Terme station on the Rome–Ancona railway is close to the gorge.