Speleologist Franco Anelli rappelled into the Grave, a natural sinkhole outside town, in January 1938 and found Puglia’s largest cave system waiting below. The passage he first explored has since given way to two marked routes: a shorter walk of about one kilometer, and the full three-kilometer traverse that continues on to the Grotta Bianca, an alabaster-white chamber so pale and smooth it can look artificially lit even under a guide’s flashlight.
Stalactites and stalagmites, some fused into columns over a hundred thousand years old, line the route between them. The caves stay a cool, constant temperature year-round, a relief in the Puglia summer heat, and the Grave sinkhole itself, now the visitor entrance, remains the most dramatic first glimpse of the underground world below.
Sources and citations (3)
- Ministero della CulturaGrotte di Castellana srlCave and route descriptionRead source
- Ministero della CulturaMuseo speleologico Franco AnelliMuseum descriptionRead source
- Catalogo Generale dei Beni CulturaliGrotte di Castellana Bari (Italy), interior of the Castellana CavesHistorical notesRead source
