Everything You Wanted to Know About Stalactite Caves
A cave: dark, mysterious, unseen. Caves have always been a shadowy chapter in human life. The imagination stirs at the sight of a dark opening in a hillside, with one person dreaming of adventure and another fearing a demonic monster lurking in its depths.
For prehistoric humans, the cave was first and foremost a dwelling: shelter from the rain and cold, protection from the night and wild animals, and later a place to store food and belongings, even a room for a curtain and a painting. Over the years, caves developed into organized and comfortable homes (comfortable is relative, of course), and whole communities grew up around and within them.
Even in the modern era, as humans learned to build everything from simple wood and stone houses to sophisticated skyscrapers, people still live in caves. Some live in remote places, in cold and bare caves, while others live in populated, settled areas where underground forms of housing developed, as seen in the troglodyte communities of the Loire Valley in France, the city of Matera in southern Italy, or the caves in the southern Hebron Hills.
Among the caves we explore and visit today, we should distinguish between two fundamentally different types. What’s commonly, though not scientifically, called “prehistoric human caves” are caves where our ancestors lived, and where remains have been found to prove it: bones, pottery and iron tools, soot marks, and more.
In a small portion of these caves, paintings have also been found, some in black alone, others more colorful. These are caves of great historical and anthropological value, and they provide a vast field for deep, meticulous research. That isn’t the purpose of this article, though. I intend to talk more about the second, more touristy type of cave: stalactite and stalagmite caves.
Note: Very few caves combine both types, prehistoric human habitation and stalactites (or stalagmites) together. Naturally, in a cave where people lived, stalactites did not form, and if there were any before, they didn’t survive the human activity. Prehistoric humans, understandably, had no way of appreciating such natural treasures or the concept of environmental preservation.
How a Stalactite Cave Forms
The Earth is made up of separate geological plates (“tectonic plates”). The Eurasian Plate, the American Plate, the Australian Plate, and others form the various continents, but these plates are not fixed in place. They press against one another rather than forming one continuous mass of ground.
Today, millions of years after the Earth’s formation (the “Big Bang”), internal activity within the Earth has greatly diminished, so there’s little major movement of the tectonic plates (internal activity sometimes shows up as a volcanic eruption or an earthquake). In the Earth’s geological past, millions and hundreds of thousands of years ago, these movements of the ground layers created mountains and valleys, and in every fold or fracture in the ground, a crack formed that allowed water to seep into the earth.
Water that seeped into a layer of limestone dissolved it very slowly. Over thousands of years, the crack in the rock widened, layers broke apart and collapsed under their own weight, and holes, pits and other cavities formed in the ground. Pits whose walls collapsed and were exposed to light and open air are what became caves. Many others remained sealed, closed off from air, rain and cold. The geological activity inside them continued slowly over the years, undisturbed by animals or humans.
The water seeping slowly through the rock dissolves limestone from the rock itself. When, during their journey through the rock and ground, the water reaches the end of a rock layer, at the ceiling of the pit or cave, a drop of water falls to the cave floor. As it falls, the drop leaves a thin layer of limestone on the cave ceiling. The limestone dries and hardens into stone. Another drop of water leaves a new layer of limestone, and then another, and another. This way, after millions of years of dripping and thin layers of limestone piling up one on top of another, a stone icicle forms, hanging from the cave ceiling (a stalactite).
When the water drips faster (for example, after a surge of water following heavy rains, or through a wider crack in the ground), the limestone doesn’t have enough time to dry and harden on the cave ceiling, and the drop of water falls immediately to the floor. After the water evaporates, a layer of limestone forms on the ground. Above it, another layer of limestone forms, and then another, and after millions of years, a column stands on the cave floor (a stalagmite).
Stalactite Caves in France
Stalactites form because of dripping (the name “stalactite” comes from the Greek “stalaktos,” meaning “dripping drop by drop”), and in fact any dripping material can form them. Icicles that form on the edges of roofs in cold winters are one example. But the necessary condition for forming a stalactite, or a stalagmite, is a cave: a hollow space where drops of water can fall and drip.
There are hundreds and thousands of stalactite caves around the world, maybe even more, since not all of them have been found yet. I don’t intend to cover all of them, since this site deals with France alone. Nor do I want to classify or rank them, since a cave can be large and sprawling but uninteresting, or small and short but gorgeous. Besides, “beauty” is a relative concept, and not everything that’s beautiful to me will be beautiful to you.
Purists will say no two caves are alike. Still, there are many points of similarity, and even though a stalagmite is a stalagmite, the eye never tires of looking at them. Every time I enter a cave like this, I’m amazed all over again, even though I’ve already seen countless stalagmites, stalactites, curtains and discs, large and small, straight and diagonal, white and colorful.
That’s also why I’m not able (or willing) to rank the caves and say which one is the most beautiful and which is “only” second. To me, every stalactite cave is beautiful, and in every cave I stand in awe before the beauty of nature, the magic worked by drops of water. In other caves, underground winds blow, and drops of water and limestone splash sideways, creating diagonal and even fully horizontal stalactites, transparent and delicate, in branches and shapes that no painter or sculptor could ever invent.
And the imagination runs wild: from a certain angle I see a leopard leaping out of the rock, or maybe a cat licking itself. In one cave I saw a woman holding a baby on her arm (Grotte de Demoiselles), and in another, a graceful dancer made of white stone, almost transparent, as fragile as delicate glass, dancing on a narrow stone stage (Lacave).
In another cave I saw rounded stone partitions formed down the slope of an underground hill, and still water pooled in these partitions created a kind of “terrace” of small, quiet lakes, shimmering under the artificial lighting (Grotte Saint Marcel). There’s no end to the sights and the descriptions, no end to the beauty and to the sound of dripping water in the silence deep underground.
So on your next trip to France, pack a sweater (the temperature in caves stays constant and is usually quite low) and step in to see magical landscapes deep inside the earth.
Here’s a short review of a few of the most beautiful stalactite caves I’ve seen in France. As I said, there’s no ranking here, and the second cave isn’t more beautiful than the sixth, or vice versa. The order is alphabetical by the caves’ names (“Grotte” means “cave” in French).
Grotte de Choranche (Isère)
The cave is located in the Isère department, in the Vercors mountain range, a beautiful area in its own right that served as a stronghold for the French resistance during World War II, largely because the difficult access roads made it hard for the Germans to track down resistance fighters (in the photo above, the black line in the middle of the cliff is the access road carved into the rock, leading up to the cave’s entrance). Grotte de Choranche holds a special status, since the entrance to the cave is on private land, making it the only cave in France considered a “private cave,” even though it’s open to the public without restriction.
Oscar Decombaz, a French cave explorer, discovered the cave’s entrance in September 1897 and made his way through the passage to a first rock arch. It wasn’t until 1949 that Roger Penelon opened a passage through the rock arch, allowing further exploration of the cave, with another stage following in 1954 after crossing an underground waterfall 116 meters high.
The cave was formed by an underground river (the Serpentine), which widens at one point in the cave to form a large lake, with a waterfall at its end spilling into an underground basin (Cirque de Choranche). A special feature on the cave’s ceiling shows a kind of “drinking straw” formation (fistuleuses, or soda straws: thin, almost transparent and hollow stalactites).
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
As with most stalactite caves, visits are guided only, and you can’t explore on your own. The visit lasts about an hour. On weekdays, tours run every 45 minutes between 11:15 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, tours run more frequently. For exact, detailed hours, check the website below. The temperature in the cave is 10°C.
Grotte de Choranche, 38680 Choranche Tel. 0476360988
Tickets (2019-2020): Adult: €12, Youth (15-18): €10.50, Child (4-14): €7.50, Under 4: free.
Arrive 20 minutes before the tour starts. Tickets can be booked in advance on the website.
You can find more information on the cave’s website
Grotte de Clamouse (Hérault)
The entrance to this cave is a few hundred meters outside the enchanting medieval village of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, home to about 250 residents, quiet and peaceful, with a beautiful Benedictine monastery, the Abbaye Saint-Sauveur de Gellone, founded in the year 804. The cave’s entrance has been known since prehistoric times (the middle Neolithic period), but cave explorers only reached its depths in the second half of the 20th century, and only then did the wondrous sights of its chambers come to light.
After preparation and development, the cave first opened to tourist visits in 1964. The cave has a wide variety of stalagmite and stalactite types, formed by different wind directions and water currents of varying speeds and strengths that cause the limestone layer to harden into unusual shapes. Here you’ll see thin “drinking straws,” the longest of which reach 4 meters, tall “curtains” that are almost transparent because of how thin they are, and round “discs” of various sizes that appear to hang in midair, jutting out at impossible angles from the cave walls, as if collapsing and crashing down to the wet floor below.
Small pits formed by water dripping on the rock floor created hollows in which a limestone pebble formed that never fully hardens, but instead rolls around inside the hollow every time a drop of water hits it. Water pooled on closed, flat surfaces creates smooth, shiny, one-of-a-kind mirror surfaces, reflecting the drinking straws hanging from the cave ceiling: a magical sight beyond imagination that leaves visitors speechless.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Here too, visits are guided only. The tour lasts about an hour and a half. During the summer months (July and August), visits run between 10:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. During the rest of the year, check the hours on the cave’s website. The temperature in the cave is 16°C.
Grotte de Clamouse, Route de Saint Guilhem le Désert, 34150 SAINT JEAN DE FOS Tel: 0467577105
Tickets (2019): Adult: €11.60, Youth (12-18): €8.80, Child (3-11): €6.80, Under 3: free.
Tickets can be booked in advance on the website.
Grotte de la Cocalière (Gard)
Many people in France’s tourism industry consider this one of the most beautiful caves in the country, and for good reason. The cave sits on the border between the Gard and Ardèche departments, in southern France. Driving along Route 904 through green rolling hills will bring you to the parking lot near the ticket booth, from which a small electric train takes you to the cave’s entrance.
The stalactite cave open to visitors is only a small part of an underground network of passages and caves totaling about 30 km in length, most of which are closed to the public. The cave, which is still active (meaning water drips and limestone layers form during the visit itself), was discovered in 1854, and every few years since then, deeper surveys have been carried out, each time revealing new passages, caves and lakes. In 1965, the current entrance tunnel was dug to make access easier, and the cave was then opened to tourist visits.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Grotte de la Cocalière, 30500 COURRY
Tel. +33 0466243474
Mail: accueil@grotte-cocaliere.com
Here too, guided tours run continuously during the summer months (July and August) from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. During the rest of the year, tours run every half hour from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. No pets allowed. The visit lasts about an hour. The temperature in the cave is 14°C.
Tickets (2019): Adult: €12, Child (6-12): €8.50, Under 6: free.
Grotte Dargilan (Lozère)
Full disclosure: of all the stalactite caves mentioned here, this is the only one I haven’t visited myself, so I can’t personally vouch for its quality or beauty, but it’s considered one of the most beautiful and largest in France. It’s known as “the pink cave” because of the color of its rocks, caused by high concentrations of iron oxides. The cave has a chamber 140 meters long and 50 meters wide, one of the largest underground spaces in France. In this chamber you’ll also see a system of “curtain” stalactites covering about 2,000 square meters, one of the largest in the world.
The cave is located in the Cévennes region, in the rugged uplands of the Larzac plateau, part of the Massif Central, not far from the gorge of the Tarn river and from another wondrous stalactite cave, the Aven d’Orgnac (more on that below). The cave was discovered in 1888 by a shepherd chasing a fox. It was studied by Édouard Martel (a well-known French cave explorer, 1859-1938), and as early as 1890 it opened to the public, making it the first tourist stalactite cave in France.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Dargilan: “La Grotte Rose,” 48150 Meyrueis, Lozère
Tel. +33 0466456020, Mail: contact@dargilan.com
Guided tours only. During the summer months (July and August), tours run every hour from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. During the rest of the year, check the detailed hours on the website. No pets allowed. The visit lasts about an hour. The temperature in the cave is 10°C.
Tickets (2019): Adult: €12.50, Child (5-18): €8.00, Under 5: free.
Grotte des Demoiselles (Languedoc-Roussillon)
Legend has it that a shepherd searching for a stray goat discovered the cave when he fell into its entrance. The truth is the cave has been known since ancient times, even if not along its full length. As early as prehistoric times, the front of the cave was used as a dwelling, and in the Middle Ages it served as a hideout for fugitives and the persecuted.
At the center of the cave is a vast, spacious chamber (120 by 48 meters, 52 meters high), not surprisingly nicknamed “the Cathedral” (“La Cathédrale”). At the center of the chamber stands a large stalagmite that, under the right lighting, looks like a woman holding a baby in her arms, the basis for countless legends and folk stories about fairies, saints and one particular virgin. That’s also where the cave gets its name, Demoiselles (“maidens” in French).
The cave is located in the limestone mountains on the southern slopes of the Massif Central, not far from the cities of Nîmes and Montpellier. The first person to explore it thoroughly was the French cave explorer Édouard Martel, in 1884, who passed through the first chamber and penetrated deep into the mountain, 300 meters below ground level, through passages totaling 500 meters in length.
The cave opened to the public only in 1931, after a funicular was built that eliminated the need to be lowered into the chamber’s ceiling by rope. Stairways were also built around the great chamber, going down (and up) through the various passages, along with several viewing platforms overlooking the chamber’s walls and its forest of stalagmites.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Grotte des Demoiselles, D986, 34190 Saint-Bauzille-de-Putois
Guided tours run continuously during the summer months (July and August) from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. During the rest of the year, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (see the detailed schedule on the website below). The visit lasts about an hour and 20 minutes. The temperature in the cave is 14°C. Tickets can be booked through the website.
Tickets (2019): Adult: €12, Youth (12-17): €9.50, Child (4-11): €7.50, Under 4: free.
Grotte de Lacave (Dordogne)
I came across the Lacave stalactite cave by chance, without knowing it even existed. During one of my trips through the Dordogne department (without a doubt, one of the most beautiful in France), I was driving from the small town of Souillac to visit the Château de Bretenoux. As usual, I preferred winding along small country roads instead of busy main highways, and that’s how I found myself on the D23, which snakes along the southern bank of the Dordogne river.
I had never heard of this cave before, not during all my research into the Dordogne, and not even during my own interest in stalactite caves (see the Aven d’Orgnac below). I stopped, parked, walked in, and was stunned. As I mentioned earlier, “beauty” is a relative concept and depends on the eye of the beholder. Maybe it also helped that I wasn’t expecting a cave in this spot. This is the most beautiful stalactite cave I have ever seen, in all my travels around the world.
The stalactite cave, open to visitors since 1905 (February through November only), contains 12 chambers spread across 1.6 km deep in the earth, within limestone cliffs that the Dordogne river carved out over the years. Sophisticated lighting (including ultraviolet lighting that brings out the colors of the stalactites and figures), hidden behind the stone curtains, stalactites and stalagmites, only enhances the magical sight, the translucent sheen of the stone and nature’s wondrous handiwork.
That same lighting will help you make out various imaginary and mythological figures, all the way to the final chamber, the “Hall of Wonders” (Salle des Merveilles), where you can spot a ballet dancer, about 10 cm tall, frozen mid-dance on a stage of white stone.
One more thing: during the third week of July every year, an international jazz festival takes place in the nearby town of Souillac. Some of the performances are held in the cave’s underground chamber, which turned out to have remarkable acoustics. Spots are limited, and tickets sell out months in advance.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Grotte de Lacave, D23, LACAVE 46200
Tel.: +33 0565378703
Guided tours run during the summer months (July and August) from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. During the rest of the year, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. (see the detailed schedule on the website below). The visit lasts about an hour and 20 minutes. The temperature in the cave is 14°C. Tickets can be booked through the website.
Tickets (2019): Adult: €11.50, Youth (4-13): €7, Under 4: free.
Aven d’Orgnac (Ardèche)
In the late 1960s, when I was still a ten-year-old boy, I went on a trip to France with my parents. When we got to Aven d’Orgnac (pronounced ah-VEN dor-NYAK), they told me we were about to visit a limestone cave. I had no idea what that meant, but the word “cave” alone scared me, and all sorts of terrifying images ran through my mind: the ceiling collapsing on me, a black bear charging at me, underground water rising to drown me, the ground giving way under my feet, and so on.
When they told me that thousands of people had already visited and nothing had happened to them, that didn’t exactly reassure me. But I went in anyway, and that’s where it all began. That’s how I discovered limestone caves. I never became a caver (a speleologist), but to this day I never miss a chance to visit a cave, anywhere in the world.
The cave sits at the southern edge of the Ardèche mountain range, at the southern tip of the Massif Central (the plateau region in the middle of France).
In August 1935, a team of French cave explorers descended into the cave’s natural opening, after local shepherds told them about a “crack in the ground.” Robert de Joly, the head of the exploration team, managed to pass on his enthusiasm to the mayor of Orgnac, on whose land the cave was found, and funding for tourist development was secured quickly. After two years of planning and preparation, construction began, and in July 1939 the site opened to the public.
The cave contains several large chambers with a combined length of about 5 km (3 miles). Getting down to them involves 700 steps (not all in a row) to a depth of 187 meters (614 feet) below ground level (the way back up is by elevator). The main chamber, Salle Joly, measures 122 meters (400 feet) long and 74 meters (243 feet) wide, with a ceiling 30 meters (98 feet) high. From this chamber, passages lead to about 10 secondary chambers, smaller but just as beautiful.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Aven d’Orgnac – La Cité de la Préhistoire, 2240 route de l’Aven, 07150 Orgnac-l’Aven
Tel.: +33 0475386510
Mail: infos@orgnac.com
Guided tours run during the summer months (July-August) from 9:30 to 19:00, every half hour. During the rest of the year, from 10:00 to 18:00 (check the website below for details). The visit lasts one hour. Pets are not allowed in. The temperature inside the cave is 12°C (54°F). You can book tickets through the website.
Tickets (2019): adult, 14.50 euros; child (6-14), 9.50 euros; under 6, free admission.
Saint-Marcel d’Ardèche (Ardèche)
The Saint-Marcel cave is located in the south of France, at the entrance to the Ardèche river gorge, a stunning spot in its own right. The natural entrance to the cave was discovered back in 1838, when a wild animal slipped into the opening while fleeing a hunter who was chasing it. But it was only 50 years later, in 1890, that a cave explorer working in the area, Édouard Martel, went inside, though he didn’t get past the first chamber.
Robert de Joly, the cave explorer who discovered Aven d’Orgnac (mentioned above) and other caves in the area, carried out a full and thorough mapping of Saint-Marcel in 1930 and again in 1940, but he had to stop due to a lack of proper equipment when he reached an underground river. Only in 1960, and again in 1980, did a joint team of French and Belgian cave explorers manage to dive through the underground river and discover 57 km (35 miles) of tunnels and chambers deep underground, reaching a depth of 287 meters (942 feet) below the surface, of which 18 km (11 miles) are flooded by the river’s water.
In 1980 the Ardèche river gorge was declared a national park, and only then did preparation of the cave for visitors begin. In 1988 the first 600 meters (1,970 feet) of the cave were opened to visitors, the rest being too difficult and impassable for the public.
The feature most associated with this cave is its water pools. Limestone deposits have formed rounded partitions on the cave’s sloped floor, and whenever heavy rain falls and the underground river overflows, these partitions fill with water, and the cave floor looks like a series of steps (“terraces”) covered in a shimmering mirror of water. It’s a magical sight.
One more thing: in recent years, an interesting experiment has been underway in the cave. Local winemakers have been aging wine barrels deep inside, testing whether the enclosed air, constant temperature and humidity affect the quality of the wine. Wine tastings are available on site.
Address and practical information for visiting the cave
Grotte Saint-Marcel d’Ardèche, Route des Gorges, 07700 Bidon
Tel.: +33 0475043807, Mail: contact@grotte-ardeche.com
Guided tours run during the summer months (July-August) from 9:00 to 20:00. During the rest of the year, from 10:00 to 18:00 (check the website below for details). The visit lasts one hour. The temperature inside the cave is 14°C (57°F).
Tickets (2019): adult, 11 euros; child (6-15), 6.50 euros; under 6, free admission.
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