Grotte di Castellana
The Grotte di Castellana are underground caves in Castellana Grotte in the metropolitan city of Bari in Apulia .
General
The grottoes are located about 2 km southwest of Castellana Grotte . They have their own stop on the Bari – Martina Franca – Taranto railway line . The area is characterized by fragile karst . The rock is soluble by rainwater. The physical and chemical processes in the cave resulted in stalactites , stalagmites and other limescale deposits such as wall sinter.
The caves
The caves were discovered by Franco Anelli on January 23, 1938 and explored by him and Vito Matarrese. Even before the discovery, the hole (access) in the earth was known, but was only used as a garbage dump.
The caves can be visited as part of a guided tour. There are two different tours, one is about a kilometer and the other is about 3 kilometers. The visit always begins in the Grave, a cave with a depth of 60 m, a width of 100 m and a height of 100 m. The second path leads to the white grotto. The stalactites here are the color of alabaster . The second path is only accessible to a limited number of visitors as the cave has no natural ventilation.
The museum
One of the caves is the Franco Anelli Speleological Museum. Here the emergence of the karst cave is shown. There are also finds from the caves to be visited.
Web links
Coordinates: 40 ° 52 ′ 32 ″ N , 17 ° 8 ′ 55 ″ E