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A Moravian Field Trip: Day 3, Punkva Caves

March 30

Our final day was even more relaxed than yesterday, because we only had one place to go and the rest of the day to drive back to the city.

Our destination today, the Punkva Caves, was awesome. We arrive at the main stop, to eat lunch at a restaurant and do a little souvenir shopping (I got a post card). The weather was amazing, as it had been all weekend, so while we were waiting for the "shuttle" (a little train cart thing) to take us to the cave entrance, we laid out in the sunshine.

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Eventually, after a 5-10 minute ride on the shuttle we arrived to the entrance of the caves. We're a large group so it was us and about three separate people in our tour group.

The caves are enormous - filled with stalagmites, stalactites, which the guide points out to you with their flashlight. They've named a lot of the major features, often after animals or things in nature that they resemble. We were allowed to touch one, and it was pretty cool - everything is kept very moist, so the surface was a bit slick.

We walked up stairs, and then eventually started making our way towards the "largest abyss in the Czech Republic." When they said that, I imagined just a dark pit in the cave (which would actually be pretty scary, so I'm glad it wasn't that). We found ourselves walking through a narrow, dark tunnel/hallway for awhile. Finally at the end we entered out into fresh air again, into the Macocha Abyss. We were all stunned semi-speechless, because you cannot imagine how open and grand this place is until you're standing there. The top opens into the outside, so it's the brightest part of the caves, with rock walls and a small stream at the bottom. They were also playing very dramatic, heavenly music through a speaker when we walked into the space, so the effect was even more impressive.

This is the bottom

and that is near the top. I have a video taken where you can seem more of it, and hear the music, so I'll be posting that separately.

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We took a boat ride through part of the caves (during which point a bat flew out, above our heads), and then out the exit that you see below.

After our tour was finished, we made our way back to the van at the main entrance, to start our journey back to Prague.

The weekend was a lot of fun, and a nice topper to our month of travel essentially (if you haven't noticed in the blog, every weekend in March was taken up by travel to some place). It was a great experience to see a different part of the Czech Republic, and with our unique group as well. The weekend also filled us up, food-wise. I honestly didn't want to eat a full meal for a couple days afterward, because we had restaurant entrees and desserts given to us by CIEE for lunch and dinner Friday and Saturday, and lunch Sunday as well as hotel breakfasts Saturday and Sunday. This was definitely the cheapest weekend as well (well, our expenses were already paid for).

We got back to Prague, looking forward to the month of April, when we would finish our Topics in Production classes and begin work on shooting our films.

#study abroad #czech republic #moravia #punkva caves #macocha abyss #CIEE

Macocha Abyss. Much more impressive than the photos convey.

#Macocha Abyss #Czech Republic #travel #Nature