Tenth Day
(05/26/2005)

This morning we were sad to live our beautiful hotel in Ždiar, the Alps were waiting for us. First visited the caves in the Slovak – Hungarian karst area. The first one we stopped at was the Dobsina ice cave, which is also a world inheritage site.

(http://encarta.msn.com/map_701516587/Slovakia.html)

“The ice cave is to be found in the  Slovak Paradise, in the  National Nature Reserve Stratena within the territory of the Slovak Paradise National Park close to Kosice. It was formed in Middle Triassic limestones by the former tributary stream of  the Hnilec river, at three developmental levels. The cave length is 1,483 m. Ice filling occurs in the form of ground ice, ice „waterfalls", ice stalagmites and columns. The total volume of ice is 110,100 cubic meters with maximum thickness of 26.5 m. It ranks among the most important ice caves in the world, thanks to its character of glaciation. The cave is one of the most important winter refuges of bats - Myotis mystacinus and Myotis brandti in Slovakia. The cave was discovered in 1870, and open to the public as early as in 1871. Since 1887, it has been the first cave with electric illumination in that-time Hungary. Currently, 475 m of the cave are open to the public.” (http://www.ssj.sk/english/dolj/dolj.htm)

Entrance to the ice cave

Our pictures of the ice cave

After finishing up in this very interesting cave, we were on our way to the world renowned aragonite cave. It is called:

OCHTINSKA ARAGONITE CAVE
WORLD NATURAL HERITAGE, NATIONAL NATURE MONUMENT

“It is situated in the Ochtinský cryptokarst in the Revúcka Highland, in the massive of Hrádok Hill, between Jelšava nad Štítnik. It was formed in a lens of Palaeozoic crystalline limestones. Overall length of the caves is 300 m. A rich aragonite filling was formed under specific hydrochemical and climatic conditions in closed underground space. The cave was discovered in 1954 by chance, when driving a new geologic exploratory gallery. It was open to the public in 1974 in the length of 230m.” (http://www.ssj.sk/english/oarj/oarj.htm)

 Entrance of the cave

Dissolution features in the marble
  

Aragonite crystals in the cavities

Aragonite crystals in the cavities

After the breathtaking aragonite cave we had to start our extremely boring drive through Hungary to Austria.

We spent the night in Mosonmagyarovar in a bad and breakfast. Mosonmagyarovar is a middle sized town close to the Austrian border.