If you happen to go to Apuseni Nature Park, don’t miss Scarisoara ice cave, one of Romania’s natural wonders. Famous for its impressive ice structures, including six meters high ice stalagmites, Scarisoara is located at an altitude of 1,165 meters above sea level.
More precisely, it is located in the Bihor Mountains, 90 miles southwest of Cluj-Napoca and has a volume of 2,649,000 cubic feet (75,000 cubic meters), making it the second largest European underground glacier, after the Eisriesenwelt ice cave in Austria.
The 3,500-year old glacier was first mentioned by the Austrian geographer Arnold Schmidl in 1863, but it was the Romanian scientist Emil Racovita who explored it between 1921-1923. Later on, Romanian speleologists established the ice cave was formed about 3,500 years ago during the glaciations.
105 m deep and 720 m long, the famous cave is divided into five areas: The Big Hall, The Church, comprising over 100 stalagmites, Great Reservation, Coman Gallery and Little Reservation.
Tourists have access only to the entrance shaft, The Big Hall and The Church, the other locations being reserved only for scientists.
If you want to visit the cave in the summer, you’d better wrap up as the temperature is up to +1°C down there in the summer. In the winter the temperature can reach down to -7°C.
The fauna is not very rich, except for some bats and for the Pholeuon prozerpinae glaciale small bugs living here.
In 2005, Cluj speleologists together with a team of foreign scientists, have analyzed some drill cores extracted from the glacier and found some hints about this region’s past: how the weather have been like for the past 4,000 years, what fires have burst in the area and even how much gold the Dacians used to exploit in the Apuseni Mountains.
Previously, a Rupicapra skeleton was discovered in the Big Reservation hall.
Visiting hours:
Monday to Saturday from 9:00 to 18:00
Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00
Entrance fee: RON 10 for adults, RON 7 for pupils and students.