Caves

Romania's most visited cave: 488 m of lit galleries beneath the village of Chișcău, full of stalactites and stalagmites, with the bones of some 140 cave bears left where they were found.

A small, easy-to-visit cave on the Rucăr–Bran corridor, in Piatra Craiului National Park: a dry gallery carved by the Dâmbovicioara stream, with about 250 m laid out and lit.

Romania's largest natural bridge and the only one in the world carrying a public road: a 30 m limestone arch left standing after a cave roof collapsed, in the village of Ponoarele on the Mehedinți Plateau.

A cave in the Apuseni Mountains that holds one of the largest underground glaciers in the world: a block of ice over 10,000 years old, reached by stairs down a shaft 60 m across.

A four-level cave in the Galbenul Gorge at the foot of the Parâng Mountains, with 860 m of lit galleries, cave bear bones and some of the oldest modern human remains in Europe.

A cave crossed by a mountain stream north of Petroșani, with a 20 m-wide portal and a gallery of about 466 m walked end to end on footbridges, beneath the Dacian fortress of Bănița.

A karst complex on the Padiș Plateau: three huge sinkholes with walls over 200 m high and a portal over 70 m tall where the Cetăților stream vanishes into the mountain. Seen from a marked hiking loop, not a show cave.

An undeveloped cave in the Bihor Mountains near Casa de Piatră: a huge portal, tens of metres high, through which the Gârdișoara stream vanishes underground.

A wild, unlit cave in the Anina Mountains with more than 6 km of passages on three levels, 1,750 m of which you explore with a helmet and head torch, led by the national park's rangers.

An ice cave in the forests of the Galbena Valley near Padiș, reached on foot along a marked trail. Around midday, light pours in through a hole in the roof and falls on the ice.

An active cave in the Trascău Mountains, with a portal almost 40 m high in the limestone wall and an underground river of lakes and waterfalls, visited only on guided tours in a wetsuit.

A cave cut into the wall of the Ialomița Gorge, in the heart of the Bucegi Mountains at 1,660 m, with a monastery built against its mouth and 480 m of lit galleries leading to the Bears' Hall and the Altar.

One of Romania's oldest show caves, with a 16 m high entrance arch, vast chambers on two levels and one of the largest bat colonies in the country.

A cave more than 10 km long, carved by the Olteț river into the limestone of the Olteț Gorge, with 800 m of gallery open to visitors and legends about Zalmoxis, a kilometre from Polovragi Monastery.

A cave with an entrance more than 30 m high facing the Crișul Repede, reached over a suspension bridge and inhabited by people as far back as the Neolithic.