Grotta del Vento
An underground treasure in the depths of the Apuan Alps
The vivid and bright concretions, the beauty and shades of colors, and the extraordinary variety of its morphological aspects make the Grotta del Vento a natural wonder of the underground world. The Cave is located in Fornovolasco, in the municipality of Fabbriche di Vergemoli, in the heart of the Apuan Alps, on the side facing Garfagnana.
Its name is due to the strong currents of air blowing through it caused by the difference between the temperature outside and the temperature inside, which is always around 10 degrees: this current had been known since ancient times, but only at the beginning of the 20th century did the actual exploration of the cave begin.
Here you can pass through siphons, galleries smoothed by water, halls adorned with "spaghetti" hanging from the ceiling, and then skirt streams and ponds, admire stalagmites and stalactites thousands of years old until reaching, in the innermost part, a shaft about 90 meters deep.
A visit to the Cave includes the possibility of taking three itineraries that differ in length and duration.
In the first itinerary lasting about an hour, mostly flatter, you can see an extraordinary abundance of limestone concretions of different colors (stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flows), then walking down a steep staircase you arrive at the edge of the Baratro dei Giganti (Giants' Chasm), 50 meters deep, where the second itinerary, which lasts two hours, begins.
You then descend into the Sala delle Voci (Hall of the Voices), whose echo creates eerie acoustic illusions, to continue to the Salone dell’Acheronte (Acheron Hall), where three small streams form an underground river. On the way back, you walk through a gallery carpeted with small gray concretions of cemented silt, reminiscent of a fir forest.
The third itinerary lasting three hours, adds a visit to an area rich in pure limestone concretions, many of them "from splash," that is, generated by the spray and misting of water falling on the stalagmites. The path climbs along the sheer walls of an imposing shaft nearly 90 meters high, still traversed by a copious waterfall during floods, until it reaches a very narrow underground canyon.
