ShowCaveBlog

Image: the cave entrance is called Ahornloch, and is rather impressive.

The Sophienhöhle (Sophie’s Cave) in Germany, in the Frankian Jura, is a fine cave, with nice speleothems and an impressive entrance portal. When you walk up to the cave from the parking lot in the valley, you reach a wide spaced, surrounded by typical dolomite knocks. And about a third of this amphitheatre is the wide portal of the cave. The huge and wide entrance hall, with level and dry sandy floor was rather popular with the local youth, who used it to make party.

Some time ago the cave and the nearby castle changed owner, and the new owner emphasized on exploiting the cave. He added coloured light, employed cheap but absolute incompetent guides, and increased entrance fee.

Ok, thats his decision, and the cutomer (visistor) will decide if he is right.

But after some kids again used the cave for a party and left some empty bottles, he decided to close the portal completely by a iron bar gate. So the portal does not look a bit romantic any more, it looks like a jail.

And by the way: it does not make any sense, as its is still possible to make party in the open space, on the green lawn with a fire place in the middle.

More info on showcaves.com

Image: the stalagmite Riesensäule (Giants’ Column).

The Binghöhle in Germany, Frankonian Jura, was redone by a local caving club. The FHKF removed the old wire fences and signs, cleaned speleothems and improved the electric light. Now the old show cave looks almost like new!

However, the Giants’ Column on the picture, which was originally almost 4m high, is still covered by a lot of debris, which forms the path. And the black stain from the visitors hands is fixed for all times in the rock of the stalagmite.

More info on showcaves.com

Al Hoti Cave is or was developed as a show cave during the last years. The scheduled open time was mid 2005. There was even a job offering posted on various lists, for the new cave manager, a position which is extremely rare.
However, until now we could not find anything on the web about the new cave. Is it already inaugurated? If you know more, please post!

Whatever you do, someone always has been faster. ShowCaveBlog is not the first blog with this topic on the web. During the last year, ten thousands of blogs were created. Numerous of them about travel, adventure, sports and more, which often includes caves.

But now I discovered a blog, which even has show caves as its main topic:
Show Caving | Caving for a lot of the rest of us

If you find more, please add an comment.

The longest tunnel in the world is built in Switzerland at the moment. It is called Gotthard Base Tunnel, as it is intended to avoid most of the ascend and descend by going through the base of the Gotthard massif.
There is a certain demand of the public to have a look at this exceptional engineering work, so the AlpTransit makes regular guided tours into the tunnel for groups, and there is a open day every year at each entrance.
The year 2005 is an important milestone, as the tunnel is now half completed. The next half is estimated to take 10 more years. So in 2015 the first trains will use the tunnel.

More info on showcaves.com

This conference about show caves takes place between October 21 and 23 in Gams bei Hieflau in Austria.

This is a traditional conference on show caves, in the country which more or less inventend many aspects of modern show caves. One of very few countries where cave guides need an exam.

So if you are interested, hurry.
More information on the page  Veranstaltungen der Karst- und Höhlenabteilung des Naturhistorischen Museums Wien at the bottom.

Image: Cave Bears from the Zoolithenhöhle. This is part of the exhibition at Pommelsbrunn.

The small Heimatmuseum (ethnological museum) of Pommelsbrunn in Frankonia, Germany, opened a new exhibition on cave bears yesterday. The reason why this happened here is easy: this is the area where the unicorn bones first were recognized as the bones of an extinct bear.
The man who did this was Rosenmüller, thats why the full scientific name of the cave bear is Ursus spelaeus Rosenmüller 1794.

The Heimatmuseum Pommelsbrunn is open every Sunday 10-17, the exhibition will be here until end of February 2006.