Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes

Interesting facts

The dripstones here grow perhaps a thousand times faster than limestone formations, because they consist largely of soft diadochite, an iron phosphate-sulphate known as mountain butter.

The grottoes are the type locality of diadochite: the mineral was first studied and described from here by the mineralogist August Breithaupt in 1837.

More than 45 minerals have been confirmed in the mine, from sulphides and oxides to phosphates, vanadates and arsenates, which explains the unusual range of colours.

The Fairy Cathedral is the oldest chamber in the mine, yet its dripstones are only about 250 to 300 years old.

The fanciful names Fairy Grottoes, Fairy Cathedral and Grail Castle were coined by the geologist Hans Hess von Wichdorff, well known throughout Germany at the time.

Near the exit hangs a root stalactite: the roots of a twin-trunked oak over 200 years old have pushed ten metres into the hill and become coated with mineral.

In 1910 the owner explored the mine with a dozen doctors and scientists, hoping to found a spa; funds ran short and he sold it in 1912.

Mineral water from the mine was bottled and sold as healing water until the mid-1960s, and a spring research institute was set up here in 1924.

Since 1937 part of the mine has served as a speleotherapy gallery, with air at a constant 10 °C and about 98 per cent humidity.

With about 160,000 visitors a year, the grottoes are the second most visited show cave in Germany after the Atta Cave; President Friedrich Ebert came in 1919.

Why it is worth it

The Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes are not a natural cave but an old mine that nature took back and painted. From 1544, with interruptions, miners at the Jeremias Glück mine on the edge of Saalfeld in Thuringia cut into alum-bearing shale; alum was prized for dyeing cloth, tanning, medicine and clarifying water. Alum mining ended in 1850, and for some decades afterwards ochre for pigments was still won here, but the deeper galleries lay forgotten. When they were rediscovered in 1910, the explorers found the tunnels transformed: water seeping through the mineral-rich rock had left dripstone in improbable colours.

That colour is the whole spectacle. More than forty minerals have been identified here, and iron and other elements tint the formations in a range of browns, ochres and earthy tones set off against paler deposits. Because the drip is young in geological terms, measured in centuries rather than millennia, the formations are delicate and dense, crowding walls and ceilings like wax. Since 1993 the grottoes have been listed by Guinness World Records as the most colourful show grottoes in the world, and the claim is easy to believe once the lights come up.

The high point of the tour is the Märchendom, the Fairy Cathedral, found in 1913. A cluster of partly fused stalactites and stalagmites rises from still, mirror-like water, and with theatrical lighting it looks like a miniature castle. Local tradition holds that this "Grail Castle" inspired Siegfried Wagner's stage designs for Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in the 1920s. Tours began in 1914 and more than twenty million people have walked the galleries since. Near the entrance, the Grottoneum museum explains the mining history, and the Feenweltchen adventure forest outside is aimed at children.

Getting there

The grottoes lie on the southern edge of Saalfeld, about 2 km from the town centre. Erfurt-Weimar Airport (ERF) is about 47 km away as the crow flies, though Leipzig/Halle (LEJ) and Nuremberg (NUE) have more connections. Saalfeld (Saale) station is served by regional trains, and local buses and signposted roads lead from town to the grotto car park. The galleries are cool and damp all year, so bring a jacket.

Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

On these lists

From the encyclopaedia