The Glacier Cave Scarisoara

The Glacier Cave Scarisoara or The Glacier Scarisoara shelters the largest underground glacier in Romania.

The road to the cave starts in the village of Upper Garda, situated on the Valley of Great Aries, 32 km upstream Campeni (on DN75).

  The Glacier Cave Scarisoara is part of the glacier karst - Ocoale - Dobresti. It is formed in limestone in the upper Jurassic age, at an altitude of 1165 m.Sometime, The Ocoale Valley flowed on the surface. With the dissolution in phreatic waters it descended underground. Following the collapse of the pit entrance, the gap, remained dry, Scarisoara fills with ice during the ice ages. After warm weather ice begins to melt and half of the volume vanishes, but is replenished every winter with a new layer at the surface. Melting takes place at the base of the glacier, so that one section melts away from the base and another is forming up. The oldest ice in the base is 4000 years.

The entry into Scărişoara Glacier is through an impressive pit, whose mouth, with a diameter of 60m is open in the forest edge of the plateau. A narrow path carved into the rock and some metal stairs anchored in the walls facilitate the descent of the 48 m, the pit depth. The base keeps a thick layer of snow all year round . Here we enter the Great Hall through an impressive gateway measuring 24 m wide and 17 m height.

The cave is a single room with a total development of 700 m. In the middle of this room is a huge block of ice with a volume of 80000 cubic meters that lasted over 4000 years.

 Near the glacier ice stalagmites occur, some of which have a permanent existence and others melt in the summer, but they recover in similar forms in the winter months.

Beyond these frozen speleoteme, the appearance of the cave changes totally, ice being replaced by concretions of great diversity and beauty. Stalactites, stalagmites, columns, parietal curtains, coralites...

Vadu Crisului Cave

The cave is situated in Bihor county, Vadu Crisului village, in the gorge Suncuius - Vadu Crisului, on the north side of Padurea Craiului Mountains.

The cave is easily reached by regular trains on the route of Cluj Napoca - Oradea. The cave is known as one of the richest in caves fauna in Romania.

In 1905 it was opened for visitors and at that time it was considered the most beautiful cave in Europe. The water that flows through the cave at 40 m from the entry forms a cascade of about 6 m. 

Stalactites and Stalagmites can be seen along the length of the cave (some of them are called: Muhammad's Grave, White Eagle, Adam and Eve, Muhammad's beard and even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). The cave can't be accessed in full, one part being reserved for research caving. 

There are species of snails, worms, insects and crustaceans. The cave being so large and with many galleries it is well populated by bats with horseshoe-shaped nose.

Heaven and Hell are two galleries, crossed by a spring with a legend: it says that if you think at a girl that you like, before drinking water from your palm from that source, the wish will come true and that girl will fall in love you.

Meziad Cave

Meziad Cave is a large cave (4750 m long with several levels), one of the fist arranged for visiting caves. It is situated in Bihor county, on the Meziad Valley, in the South East region of Padurea Craiului Mountains.

You can reach the cave using the national road E-79 (76) between Oradea and Varfuri, with branch to Beius through downtown, from where the cave is located at a distance of 22 km on the road Rosia (Borod) - Alesd. From Beius to Remetea village, you have about six kilometers, and from Remetea the road leads to Meziad. The cave is about three kilometers from Meziad village. The path to the cave is a forest road.

The cave is situated at an altitude of 297 meters, and the mouth of the cave entrance has a height of 16 meters and a width of 10 meters.

The cave has two levels of karstification:

* The lower level, which amounts to 1542 m and is characterized by unusually large spaces, often measuring 20-30 meters wide and 15-20 meters tall. After about 400 meters, galleries narrows sharply, the lower level extending through two galleries difficult to reach, therefore, not included in the tourism sector of the cave.

* The upper level, with total length of 3208 meters, has three main areas connecting with the lower gallery: The downward Gallery, Junction Galena and Devil's neck. Superposition of the two levels creates a Natural Bridge particularly impressive, the overall height reaching 35 meters here.

In the cave there were found traces of the Paleolithic and Neolithic, the cave being inhabited by Homo sapiens and animals like Ursus spelaeus. The cave provides favorable conditions for wintering bats, especially Miniopterus schreibersii species, that are forming a rather large colony in the Bats Hall.