3540 Le Grotte di Frasassi

Caves for the disabled

Le grotte di Frasassi is a complex of caves, the largest cave is of a size sufficient to contain Milan Cathedral, and amazingly you can even visit this particular cave in a wheelchair! To visit the other caves in the complex 'I'm afraid you do need to be ambulant, and if you want to do one of the specialist speliological tours you need aqualungs and the like.
But, for the general visitor, it is a fantastic place to visit, and terribly well organised. You park in a huge car park and a little bus takes you up to the caves, if you time it right you can get a guided tour in a language of your choice, the locality is crawling with really nice very inexpensive restaurants serving jug Rosso di Conero in an incredibly beautiful gorge setting - a fantastic day out.
Only one thing to watch out for - even in August it is about 4degrees C in the caves, so shorts and tee-shirts are not a bright idea.

Below is a pretty slick virtual tour link - but it really does not capture the atmosphere, or more importantly it doesn't capture the awesome size of the caves - so make your way to Genga (a few km north of Fabriano) if you possibly can.

[url]http://www.frasassi.com/virtualtouruk.html[/url]

Category
Do & See

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/05/2006 - 09:27

Relaxed you beat me to it the caves were going to be my next entry.
Fabulous day out which I didn't want to do at first.
Having seen the caves of drach many times in Majorca, I thought "oh no here we go again"!!
How wrong!!!! Le Grotte di Frassasi are stunning and even if I can never remember my stalagnites and other thingies, a visit here always leaves me in utterly spellbound.
To think that since they were discovered in 1948, over 13 kms of underground caverns have been discovered and they haven't finished yet!!!
A day out to the caves can easily be tied in with a visit to nearby Fabriano (13 kms) to visit the birthplace of the painter Gentile and also see the museum of paper and filigree in the old San Domenico monastery.
Fabriano is where the watermark was invented.
Also Matelica and its famous production of Verdicchio can be linked in.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/05/2006 - 09:33

It's a great place. I was there 4 years ago, when there was that terrible heat wave in Europe. Waiting in line I thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion. When I entered the cave all the Italians started putting on sweaters and jackets. I started stripping. Felt like Canada.

Beautiful place to visit..

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/27/2007 - 18:23

I've been on this tour twice now and it is absolutely fantastic. Even when you are on the tour it is difficult to work out the scale of the place until at one point the tour guide points to a stalegtite way up in the distance and says that it is size of a double decker bus (when from that distance it just looks like a ball point pen).

Make sure that you get on the right tour though as it gets a little bit confusing and chaotic when you are split into different languge groups after the barrier. My first time round I got into the Italian group by mistake but it was very good for my vocabulary!

Mark
[url=http://www.realitaly.co.uk]Real Italy (www.realitaly.co.uk)[/url]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/27/2007 - 18:45

Relaxed thank you so much for drawing my attention to this seemingly wonderful place. Where is Fabriano and would you only be able to access initially the caves by car??? Additionally where is Fabriano??? Cheers

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/27/2007 - 19:27

[QUOTE=turtle;52132]Relaxed thank you so much for drawing my attention to this seemingly wonderful place. Where is Fabriano and would you only be able to access initially the caves by car??? Additionally where is Fabriano??? Cheers[/QUOTE]

Sorry I asked the same question twice.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 01/28/2007 - 04:30

For those of you with teenagers with an excess of energy, the Caves run for small groups a tour to the more inaccessible parts of the Cave system. You have to don waterproofs and helmets etc and be able to worm your way through small openings and down rope ladders, but for working off the energy it is highly recommended. You will need to book the tour in advance however as they only run a limited number.