Interesting places to visit in le Marche: Frasassi
One of the most beautiful and interesting places to visit in Le Marche is Frasassi, a complex series of caves stretching for kilometers inside the mountains nearby the town of Genga. It is one of the biggest caves of Europe and its many spectacles attracts every years thousands of tourists and speleologists.
The Discovery of Frasassi
It was the year 1971 when a group of young amateur speleologists, curious about the strong wind coming from a small aperture on the mountain discovered what turned out to be a complex systems of caves: The caves of Frasassi.
It all started when one of the speleologist noticed a small entrance on the slope of mountain Vallemontagna. With the help of his friends they managed to open a passage which lead them to a small room with many apertures where strong winds were coming out. The amateurish speleologists could easily call it a day and forget about it but curiosity was too strong and wanted to know where the strong winds where coming from so proceeded to excavate.
It was many days of works, done in all secrecy by the group of friends who shared the excitement for the potential discovery. Finally, after creating a tight opening one of the speleologist slipped inside and moved until he find the edge of what he believed to be a big room. To calculate more or less the height he threw a small stone and counted how many seconds it took to reach the ground. 5 seconds!. He was wrong, the room was huge! That is how they discovered the biggest room of Frasassi cave complex, a space so big that one can fit inside the Duomo of Milan!.
Visiting this interesting place in Le Marche: Frasassi Today
Nowadays to visit this beautiful cave we won’t go down the same route as the geologists did, but we will we walk on a long dark corridor deep inside the mountain. As we finally enter in the main cave i feel speechless because no words give it justice!. It’s so gigantic and the magic of it is that you can’t really understand how big it is. Inside the cave there aren’t things to compare thus is hard for the mind to understand the real dimensions!.
For example: in the main cave you’ll pass nearby two pillars, you might think they are around 3m high. Wrong! They are respectively 18 and 20m high!
As we walk, all around us the silence is broken by the continuous dropping of water. Each stalactite, each stalagmite here have thousands of years least. The biggest ones millions of years!
This place is literally sculpted by time!.
And it’s crazy to think on how many other secrets are still undiscovered around the globe and sometimes all it takes is the curiosity of an amateur explore to find them!
More interesting places to visit: the Temple of Valadier
After visiting the beautiful caves of Frasassi you can take a 30 minute walk to a temple located on a mountain.
But reaching it is quite a little challenge itself as the ascent becomes steeper and steeper. For this reason is a good idea to bring a walking stick and a good pair of sneakers!
The gorgeous Temple of Valadier awaits you at the end of the path. This octagonal shaped temple was built in 1828 by the architect Giuseppe Valadier under the order of Pope Leo XII who was born in Genga. It once contained a marble statue of Virgin Mary and child. The statue now resides in Genga’s museum, but you can still enjoy taking selfies in front of the temple.
On the opposite direction of the Temple lies the Sanctuary of Santa Maria Infra Saxa. The sanctuary is ancient; it is cited in documents from 1029. It is a simple stone structure built by Benedictine monks to house a burned image of the Madonna.
Frasassi is a great place to visit in Le Marche and a beautiful example of human architecture fused into nature!.
Check below a video I made about it and experience yourself the caves!!
Timothy Dykes
Thatsmarche