Day 82: Moravian Karst

JUNE 24 - Early departure from Brno to Blansko, to visit some sites in the Moravian Karst. This is a vast system of limestone caves, the largest in the country.

The specific cave we went to was Punkva Caves. This tour is normally booked out far in advance but I got lucky getting a ticket a few days prior. Unfortunately all the tours are only in Czech.

I did a lot of research to see how to get this done, but all my efforts were not sufficient to make it an easy trip. First, the ‘train’ ticket I bought online the night before was actually for a bus. I could not see this on the ticket, as it gave only a number and departure time, from the central train station. In fact, it was for a bus, leaving from a bus station about two blocks away. At this station, all was chaos, with no timetable posted. It took a lot of time to get the information we needed to know where to stand. Even so, I thought we were probably going to give up the ride for lack of understanding of which bus to get on. In the end I managed to find the right one.

Offloading in Blansko, there was no information at the station about what to do next. I know we needed to get to a place called Skalní Mlýn, but it turned out that the bus I thought was running up there is very infrequent. We end up walking into town, to the tourist information center, and find out what we need to know. End up taking a taxi for 200 koronas up the mountain, into the Pustý Žleb Canyon, where the visitor’s center to Punkva Caves is located.

Punkva Caves is the largest and most popular cave system to visit in the Moravian Karst. It was first explored in 1909. There are other cave systems in this region that show human habitation from Neolithic times, and a few of the caves were exploited for iron in medieval times.

The Punkva Caves include some large galleries, an underground river, and one huge karstic collapse feature.

Before going to the cave, we visited the cave museum, which had a lot of good interactive material to teach kids about caves in general, and the history of the Moravian Karst.

The final bit of road heading up to the caves is through a pristine deciduous forest.

There are many small caves everywhere along the limestone cliffs.

The first part of the cave tour was walking through a number of galleries. There were many lights installed, which only switch on when the group moves through.

So many speleothems! Stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flowstone, and a few straws (the needle-like stalactites).

Some pooling gives good reflections.

This stalactite/stalagmite pair is so close to becoming a column. Sadly, the tour guide told us it is no longer dripping, so will never connect. But if it was still active, the 10 cm or so separating it would take about 1000 years to close up.

Some flat-topped stalagmites and coliform flowstone.

Some awesome drapery speleothems in the latter part of the walking tour.

The cave opened up into a massive karstic collapse feature called the Macocha Abyss, 138 meters deep.

Another view of the collapse feature. Despite the 30⁰ C temperature outside, down here it was about 8⁰ C.

A large column, many thousands of years in the making.

The end part of the tour was in an electric-powered boat, along the underground river system.

The end of the tour, where the river emerges from the cave.

Take a bus back to Blansko, then figure out a bus back to Brno. Walk around the old town center for a bit, then back to the apartment.

Czech Republic