Tourists from all over the world come to Crimea to see the beauty of Marble Cave, which was created by nature for thousands of years. And it is not surprising — Mramorna Cave was recognized by experts as one of the five most beautiful caves on our planet, it is part of the International Association of equipped caves and is one of the most visited in Europe.
Marble Cave was discovered by Simferopol speleologists in 1987 near the famous cave Ban-Bash-Koba in the bowels of the lower plateau mountain massif Chatyr-Dag. The cave is a uniquely beautiful system of underground halls and galleries.
The length of all explored halls is more than 2 kilometers, and their depth is up to 60 meters. The cave has two levels — the Main and the Lower Gallery, as well as the side «Tiger Hall». Speleologists have been searching for new halls in the system since the cave’s opening and to this day.
Tourists can visit the cave in two ways — with the usual excursion route of the Main Gallery or with an exotic speleotour to the Lower Gallery, where excursions have been organized since 2006.
The length of the tourist route of the Main Gallery of the Marble Cave is about 1.5 km. Before the admiring eyes of visitors are real works of art,
created by nature from stalactites and stalagmites, sometimes they are so plausible, resembling faces, objects or figures that it is hard to believe that it was created by nature and not the hands of a talented sculptor. But in fact it is so — since the cave was opened it has been protected and no changes have been made here, except for the equipment of hiking trails.
The tourist route of the Main Gallery starts with the amazing «Fairy Tale Gallery», the stalagmite formations in which resemble famous fairy tale characters, then passes to the «Tiger Walk», which got its name because of the remains of a saber-toothed tiger found in the cave.
The route continues in the «Hall of Perestroika» — one of the largest equipped caves in Europe, formed due to the collapse of the ceiling between the floors of underground galleries about a million years ago, the length of the hall is about 250 and height — about 30 meters. From the collapse hall you can see the «Palace Hall», where the «king» and «queen» of the cave and their entourage sit on stone thrones — marvelous tinctured stone columns.
For those who are not afraid of the extreme, a three-hour speleological tour to the Lower Gallery is available. In this tour you can admire the elegance of the «Pink Hall» with real stone roses, the splendor of stone altars and cascades of golden tinctures of the «Hall of Hope», stone gnomes and stalactite forest, huge chandeliers covered with corralite flowers
«Lustrovyj Hall», see the largest in the Lower Gallery and the most impressive cave «Balcony Hall», divided into two floors by a 12-meter step.
A visit to this attraction of Crimea leaves the most vivid impressions for a person of any age. Plunging into this beauty hidden from the eyes for thousands of years, you can imagine how bizarre the fantasy of nature, feel how limitless it is. If you want to see the brightest attractions of Alushta, be sure to include the Marble Cave in the list of visits, without which the idea of the beauties of Crimea will be incomplete.
The Marble Cave can be reached by taking a trolleybus from Alushta to the stop «Zarechnoye», thence to the village of Marble Cave by bus. The road to the cave from the village is 5 km — you need to follow along the high-voltage line through the quarry.