Grotte di Castellana Castellana Caves
Country:	Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Region:	Apulia Apulia Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
Province:	Bari Province of Bari The Province of Bari is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Bari.It has an area of 5,138 km², and a total population of 1,594,109 . There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Bari...
Municipality:	Castellana Grotte Castellana Grotte Castellana Grotte is a town and comune in the province of Bari, Puglia, Italy.-Geography:Agricultural center of the lower Murgia, it is situated 40 km in south of Bari.-External links:...
Coordinates Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on the Earth to be specified by a set of numbers. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represent vertical position, and two or three of the numbers represent horizontal position... :	40°52′32"N 17°08′59"E
Time zone Time zone A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times... :	CET Central European Time Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00... , UTC+1 UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as .This time is used in:*Central European Time*West Africa Time*Western European Summer Time**British Summer Time**Irish Standard Time...
Type:	Karst cave Karst topography Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions.Due to subterranean drainage, there...
Length Length In geometric measurements, length most commonly refers to the longest dimension of an object.In certain contexts, the term "length" is reserved for a certain dimension of an object along which the length is measured. For example it is possible to cut a length of a wire which is shorter than wire... :	3,000 m
Elevation:	330 amsl Above mean sea level The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...
Depth:	? m
Website	Grotte di Castellana

The Castellana Caves (Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

: Grotte di Castellana) are a remarkable karst

Karst topography

Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions.Due to subterranean drainage, there...

 cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte

Castellana Grotte

Castellana Grotte is a town and comune in the province of Bari, Puglia, Italy.-Geography:Agricultural center of the lower Murgia, it is situated 40 km in south of Bari.-External links:...

, in the province of Bari

Province of Bari

The Province of Bari is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Bari.It has an area of 5,138 km², and a total population of 1,594,109 . There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Bari...

, Apulia

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

. They are one of the most famous show cave

Show cave

Show caves — also called tourist caves, public caves, and in the United States, commercial caves — are caves that are managed by a government or commercial organization and made accessible to the general public, usually for an entrance fee...

s of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Overview

The caves, discovered in 1938 by the speleologist

Speleology

Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form and change over time...

 Franco Anelli , are situated 1 km south of Castellana and are served by the (Grotte di Castellana railway station) on the FSE

Ferrovie del Sud Est

thumb|An Ad.42 automotrice in the Bari Sud Est station.Ferrovie del Sud Est is a secondary railway company of Apulia, southern Italy, operating in the comuni south to Lecce.-Lines:* Linea 1 Bari-Taranto* Linea 2 Martina Franca-Lecce...

 line Bari

Bari

Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...

-Putignano

Putignano

Putignano is a town and comune in the province of Bari, Puglia, Italy.-Economy:In the past the economy of the city was principally based on agriculture, but soon the population converted the rural village into an industrial center...

-Martina

Martina Franca

Martina Franca is a town and comune in the province of Taranto, Apulia , Italy. It is the second most populated city of the province after Taranto....

-Taranto

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

.

The entrance is represented by an enormous vertical tunnel

Pit Cave

A pit cave, or vertical cave — or often simply called a pit or pot — is a type of natural cave which contains one or more significant vertical shafts rather than being predominantly a conventional horizontal cave passage. Pit caves typically form in limestone as a result of long-term erosion by...

60 meters-long. The main cave is named "La Grave" (as abyss) , and others are named Black Cavern (Caverna Nera), White Cave (Grotta Bianca) and Precipice Cavern (Caverna del Precipizio).

External links

Grotte di Castellana official site