Mladeč Caves - visit
The visitors descend from the entrance exposition in the building of the cave administration through the rock portal in the place of a former quarry to the Dome of the Dead. These spaces were known in prehistoric times and then forgotten for a long time.
In the places where skeletal remains of Cro-Magnon people and Pleistocene animals were excavated, an example of a prehistoric fireplace and a small part of archaeological and paleontological findings is shown today. Historical memorial tablets on the cave walls commemorate both the places of findings and names of the remarkable explorers J. Szombathy and J. Fürst who conducted research in the years 1881 to 1922 here. In the Dome of the Dead you can feel an atmosphere of mystery and uncovered history.
The cave tour continues then from the vast space supported by several huge rock pillars past the chimney filled with boulder debris which is, according to some opinions, probably the original entrance to the cave. The visitors can have a look into the highest level of the underground system and, passing huge cracked stalagmites, they come to the Crossing. There are five corridors that run out from a high space and lead into the so-called Labyrinth. The staircase then leads past the sinter formation Petrified Mushroom and the Lizard Cave to the lowest space open to the public – Blue Cave. The high underground dome with horrible looking blocks in the ceiling is 37 metres below the Earth's surface. The visitors then return from the cave called the Blue Cave to the Chapel, where a symbol of the cave is waiting – the over 2-metres-high beautiful stalagmite called "Mummy". From here the corridor leads to a high hall – Temple of Nature.
There are beautifully coloured sinter coatings on the walls together with stalactite and stalagmite formations named according to their shapes – Lamb, Dove or Snowy Tree. The cave tour continues through the Nameless Cave and the Bat Cave to the dome discovered by local residents from Mladeč in 1902. It was named Virgin Cave with regard to a well-preserved stalactite and stalagmite decoration. Groups of stalagmites of many forms in this cave resemble known objects – Bethlehem, Petrified Castle, Madonna and others according to human imagination. The cave called the Virgin Cave is also the largest area under the Třesín Hill.
The Mladeč Caves guided tour ends up back in the Dome of the Dead. Thus, the last impression the visitors are left with when they come back to the Earth’s surface is the mysterious burial ground of our ancestors from the time of thirty thousand years ago and the bones of prehistoric animals it was surrounded by.
In 2003, the modern and sensitively restored trail offered an extraordinary experience for all.
