Moravian Karst (Moravský Kras) is a region about 20 kms east of the village where I grew up. As a right karst region, it has numerous caves, out of which five are open for tours. Since it is the major karst area in the country, it attracts a lot of visitors and tours to the most popular caves fill up in the summer days. For that reason, we started with Sloupsko-oůvské caves, located in the northern part of the region, which are not so crowded. I was there last time about 15 years ago, so I did not remember much, but the entrance is newly rebuilt, with a souvenir shop and refreshments kiosk. The tour itself took somewhat over one hour, and ended in cave Kůlna, where were found remnants of pre-neandertals from up to 120000 yrs. ago. It was then inhabited in and out by both neandertals and modern humans for the rest of the prehistoric era. The last inhabitant was the german military, which made there an undergound factory in WWII and managed to mess the things up quite a bit for the archeologists.
Somewhat before noon we drove to abyss Macocha, over 100 m. deep, and one of the dominants of the region. The abyss is located above most popular caves, Punkevní. One can also buy tickets for the tour of the caves at the abyss, but then descend about 150 m. to the entrance, either by a gondola, or by foot. We ended up being lucky since somebody before us cancelled reservation, so we got tickets for this tour as well, and run down the trail to make it to the entrance on time (it took about 30 min, gondola supposedly takes only 5 min, but costs I think 50 Kč = $1.50 - too much for the Czech standards). The tour of Punkevní caves ends with about 20 min. float on an undergound river Punkva, which is something that is not available at every cave.
When we came out of the cave, it was almost 3pm. We went for a short walk down Suchý leb towards another cave, Kateřinská, and then up back to the car, which was parked at Macocha. The hike was not that exciting, all the time in the forest, so one did not have any nice views, and it was quite hot and humid. Around 4.15pm we got back to the car, and drove home, with a short shopping stop in the district town Blansko.
On the way to the entrance to Sloupsko-oůvské caves.
Several pictures from Sloupsko-oůvské caves.
A small panorama of cave Kůlna.
Panel in the cave floor showing the age of the soil layers.
Panels from cave Kůlna describing its inhabitants and the age they lived in (in Czech).
Walking back to the entrance of Sloupsko-oůvské caves.
View to the ticket and food kiosk buildings next to the caves entrance.
Another view to the caves entrance.
Panorama with a view down abyss Macocha.
View directly down abyss Macocha.
Bottom of valley Suchý leb, a bit above entrance to Punkevní caves.
Several pictures from Punkevní Caves.
On the bottom of abyss Macocha, where one comes in about the middle of Punkevní caves tour.
Embarking on the boats inside of the cave.
Several pictures from Masaryk Dome, where one can walk during a short boat stop.
Dina at the exit from the caves.U of U / CHPC / Cuma / Travel / English / Moravian Karst 01
URL: http://www.chpc.utah.edu/~mcuma/kras01e.html