Caves

Caves are natural voids underground, large enough to be visited by man. This site is specialized on easy and comfortable to visit caves! Most comfortable are show caves, where paved paths and electric light allow everybody to discover the beauty of the underground.

The Greek letter Omega is the symbol for caves. It is used on maps to mark the location of a cave. The reason is the similarity between the symol and a typical cave entrance. You will find this symbol many times on this site and it allways means a natural cavern.

	Image: a tour in the show cave  Laichingen Vertical Cave, Germany.

You will find two different categories of caves on showcaves.com:

1. Show Caves are caves which are open to the public. This sort of caves are also called commercial caves or tourist caves.
   They have (electric) light, comfortable paths, guided tours and open hours. You will have to pay a fee. Those are the caves visited by tourists.
   
   
   • Index of Show Caves
   • Index of Show Caves grouped by country




	Image: an easy to visit "wild" cave:  Schiller Cave, Germany.

2. Other caves are often called Wild Caves. They can be very dangerous to visit, and it is often very dangerous for the cave if too many people visit it. For both reasons, safety and environmental protection, we list only two types of wild caves:
   
   

   Caves, which are easy to visit:

   They have no light and no regular guided tours, but you need little equipment like good shoes and light (electric torch) to visit them. Some of those caves are even part of a trail, a public footpath. Nevertheless, you should read the comments about spelunking and use your brain when visiting one of those caves.
   
   

   Caves, which are famous and important

   Some caves are extremely interesting, or provide a superlative of any kind. Some have a famous history, others contain extraordinary speleothems. All of them are generally not open to the public and most of them are dangerous. Many cavers try to protect the caves and the naive visitor by concealing informations.
   We have choosen an alternative: we use our cave description to explain, why it is not a good idea to visit those caves, and we try to answer all the questions of interested people with our page, hoping to satisfy your curiosity. Please refrain from entering those caves!
   
   

   • Index of Caves
   • Index of Caves grouped by country

More about...

• Speleology, the geology of caves.
• Caving, exploring caves.
• Abbreviations and Symbols on showcaves.com.