The easiest access point is Alghero, which is about 25 km (15.5 miles) east of Capo Caccia or Sassari, which is 45 km (28 miles) southeast of Capo Caccia. The Grotte di Nettuno are located in the area of Capo Caccia promontory. Practical Information To Plan Your Visit Where is Neptune’s Grotto? My last recommendation is to bring a camera with you as you will want to take photos for sure. The deeper you venture into the caves, the more you’ll discover about them: the guide will tell you every secret about the various rooms, which all have very suggestive names (such as the Hall of Ruins and the Royal Palace Hall) I don’t want to spoil the whole experience for you! Around it, several stalactites and stalagmites decorate the room: the most important of them, the so-called Holy Water Font, is more than two meters tall and serves as a small water holder for the birds living in the Neptune’s Grotto. The first room is the one where you can see the famous La Marmora Lake, one of the biggest saltwater basins in Europe. Whether you get to the caves on foot (via the stairs) or by boat, you’ll end up at the same entry point, and will start your guided tour of the place, which will show you several rooms carved in the limestone by centuries of water dripping. The caves are about 4 km broad – it’s not a huge complex – but the part that’s actually safe to visit and therefore open to the public is just a few hundred meters wide.ĭespite these reduced dimensions, there is plenty to see and the visit lasts overall more than one hour, especially because you can’t visit on your own: the only available option is to join a guided tour, for safety reasons and to protect the site. The caves in the area of Capo Caccia used to provide shelter to the now extinct monk seals. The latter is particularly interesting since paintings dating back to the Neolithic were found there. Among them, there are the Grotta dei Pizzi e Ricami, Grotta di Nereo and Grotta Verde. There are many other caves in the area of Capo Caccia that are only accessible by sea and are actually relatively unknown even to locals. Some parts of the complex, deemed more dangerous, are still reserved to expert speleologists and closed to the public, but contrary to many other caves in Sardinia, Neptune’s Grotto have been explored in their totality. Several important persons, such as La Marmora and John Warre Tyndale, have visited the caves and mentioned them in their writings. Official records mention a fisherman finding the place in the 1700s, but historians agree on the fact that ancient populations must have at least visited these places, especially because the nearby complex of Porto Conte was notoriously inhabited since the pre-historical ages (tons of tools have been found inside the caves) and the Romans had a village there.Īnyway, Neptune’s Grotto has been thoroughly explored only in relatively modern times. There is no certain proof of when the Grotte di Nettuno were discovered first. Practical Information To Plan Your Visit.
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