An sur loess. An-sur-Les cave is an underground treasure of Belgium. Fascinated by Belgium. En-sur-Les. caves

Wallonia has small town Han-sur-Less, and it would hardly have become something special, but he was lucky - next to him is a beautiful underground grotto system that attracts tourists from all over the country, which has been turned into a stunning attraction.

The journey through the grottoes lasts about one and a half hours, accompanied by a guide. Let's go and we'll take a walk.

The journey begins with a trip to the entrance of the grottoes on an old tram with open sides, which goes at a considerable speed and shakes characteristically, but it's fun:

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Along the way, you can see a part of the local natural reserve, where wild animals were settled in the wild, and separate excursions are allowed there, in the style of a safari or on foot, everyone goes there with small children:

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At the entrance to the entrance waiting for a little surprise. The fact is that there are no excursions in English, there are only two groups - one French-speaking, the other Dutch-speaking. This is worth keeping in mind. It won’t be a hindrance in terms of seeing it, you just won’t understand anything from the tour if you don’t speak one of these languages. I speak both, but, alas, so far very weakly, I went with the Dutch-speaking ones, I managed to understand 10 percent of the story and a few jokes.

So, let's go to the grotto:

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Some rock formations resemble faces or whole mystical images:

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In some places it is already difficult to understand which of them are stalactites and which are stalagmites:

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Mystical, bewitching landscapes - they are everywhere:

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"Beware of icicles":

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The rock flowing down with acid forms the following formations:

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It seems that the armor of the guards is about to rattle somewhere underworld:

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Freud, it's a pity you won't see this anymore:

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And here the mouth of a monster full of crooked teeth is looking at us:

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Stalagmites compete in height:

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At first, everyone stands and does not understand anything, and then the guide says "boven" ("from above"), everyone raises their heads, and there:

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Without the last photo, the atmosphere would not have been clear, but here are both adjacent grottoes where we stood in full scale:

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Throne room of the mountain king, not otherwise:

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So you can imagine how he would sit on this throne:

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And this is the ceiling:

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Amazingly graceful forms:

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And in this whirlpool of beauty draws:

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I would have said that these are the houses of the servants of the mountain king:

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And next to the abyss:

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Weird "trees":

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Time wears away the stones:

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The thickest stalagmite, more than 4 meters in diameter:

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And here it just seems that this is the mouth of a dinosaur:

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Where the river receded, there was sand. It shows small holes left by drops dripping from above. Someday this will also become interesting formations:

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Flash shooting is prohibited, and you can’t take good pictures of this area in dim light, but the photo clearly shows the cave from where the river flows out, and splashes of water:

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Now up. The figure on the left seems to be a fat, cunning dwarf in a black cap, and the figure on the right looks like a black-haired knight smelling a silver rose (referring to the fact that the Arden (n) forest begins near the city, quite an interesting allegory turns out):

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We rise upward, below the abyss, where the light comes from. The lighting design is amazing, of course.

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Another look down:

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Alas, in the fast-moving crowd, the hand trembled, and the photo of the bridge over the river was blurred. Then we went further along this bridge:

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Hooray, sunlight, the sky, and beautiful Walloon landscapes:

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That's the end of the tale, and whoever read - thank you.

You can get to En-sur-Lesse both by your own car and by public transport.

How to get there by car is described on their website.

public transport get there like this: by train to Jemelle station (located between Luxembourg and Namur on the Luxembourg-Brussels line), from there by bus number 29 (you can buy a ticket from the driver) to the stop Église / Han-sur-Lesse ("eglise / en-sur- loess"). The first bus leaves the station at about half past nine. For buses back to the schedule pasted at the bus stop, categorically do not believe. The schedule can be found on the website. It is better to leave early, later there will be a lot of people and a long queue. The first tram leaves for the cave at 10 am, the first bus just in time for it, if you quickly go to the ticket office to buy a ticket and quickly go to get into the trailer. But they are every half an hour.

Even in the cave it is very cool, about +13 degrees, it is better to wear something warm. It sometimes drips from above, this is also better to take into account.

Trying to walk from the station to An-sur-Lesse (~ 7 kilometers) or back is highly discouraged from my own sad experience (I walked back) - there is no footpath, but a roadside highway after some time it narrows strongly, while very dangerous road with sharp turns and hills and a lot of trucks, and then without a curb at all. It will be possible to pass a maximum of 3 kilometers, and you will have to go back.

For those traveling with children, it is useful to know that you can also go to the nature reserve with animals there, there is a combined ticket both to the grottoes and there. A lot of children go to see the animals.

zhuravlik26
02/08/2015 18:00

The opinion of tourists may not coincide with the opinion of the editors.

Belgium has beautiful and truly unique natural resources: a cave gets into the top three most popular tourist sites in Belgium from year to year natural origin En-sur-Les, which is visited annually by an average of half a million people. It is located near the village of the same name in the province of Namur.

The population of the village of En-sur-Les barely exceeds a thousand inhabitants and the activities of most of the people here are somehow connected with the underground kingdom. The infrastructure is well developed: here you will quickly find photo studios, hotels, fashionable restaurants and small eateries, a car rental service, a travel agency and much more. Why is An-sur-Les cave so interesting?

Let us immediately pay attention to the fact that chilly weather reigns in the cave all year round: the temperature is about 13 0 C and humidity is almost 100%, so it is worth taking an extra sweater with you. The cave can only be accessed by an old tram that runs between the village and the entrance to An-sur-Lesse. It won't take long to drive 2 kilometers and you will find yourself in front of the entrance to the underworld.

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old tram

The total length of the tunnels is more than 15 kilometers, but tourists are led through a 3-kilometer labyrinth. And this is quite enough for most visitors to freeze and get tired.

An important point of the tour is a visit to the hall of stalactites, called the Minaret. Five-meter arches are strewn with stalactites and stalagmites, whose age reaches 12 thousand years! The leader among these "icicles" is the stalagmite "Trophy", whose diameter exceeds 6 meters. Another obligatory stage of the walk through the cave is the sound and light show.

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Hall of stalactites

The show makes a strong impression, which is not allowed to fade away by a boat trip on the river Les, sometimes compared to the gloomy Styx. The tour ends with a cannon volley, which allows you to personally marvel at the magical acoustics of the underground labyrinths. You will have about an hour and a half to feel like a real speleologist.

Information for travelers:

The full cost of the tour is 27 euros for an adult and 17 euros for a child.

Ticket office opening hours: 10:00 - 16:00 (until 17:00 in summer). A lot of useful information can be found on the official website of An-sur-Lesse.

How to get there:

Address: Rue Joseph Lamotte, 2, 5580 Han-sur-Lesse, Belgique. GPS coordinates: 50.1183, 5.19050.

By bus 29 from Jemelle station on the Brussels-Luxembourg line.

By car - on the E441 highway from Luxembourg or Brussels.

Belgium, Rue Joseph-Lamotte 2, Han-sur-Lesse, Belgium

general information

The cave, popular among tourists, is located in a small Belgian village of the same name. The underground entrance is located near locality, which fully serves this attraction: cafes, restaurants, car rentals, guides - the whole business here is related to tourists.

Tours run every hour, it is better to check the schedule on the website, as there are often changes. The group is put on a tram, which rushes to the entrance to the cave. You will have to explore the dungeon on foot. For tourists, only 3 tunnels out of 14 explored are open. It is necessary to dress warmly, as the temperature here does not rise above +13 ° C, and the humidity is 100%.

Guides lead the group through the halls with giant stalactites and stalagmites, then a light show takes place in one of the halls, when ladies in magnificent dresses and exotic animals appear on the bizarre outlines of rocks. In the next room, the group gets into a boat and floats along an underground river. The tour ends with a cannon shot that demonstrates the power of the cave's acoustics. The entire tour lasts about an hour.

How to get there

You can get to the village of En-sur-Les by train from Brussels to Jemelle station. The train leaves every hour, it takes 1 hour 20 minutes, the ticket costs 17 €. Further 10 km to the cave can be overcome by taxi or regular bus 29, which runs once every 20 minutes. The ticket costs 3 €. A taxi will cost about 20 €. You can buy train tickets and see the timetable at

En-sur-Les has less than a thousand inhabitants, but up to half a million people come here every year. What attracts them so much in this ordinary place? Perhaps the point is not in the village itself, but in the fact that the bowels of the earth under it hide?

A few kilometers from the village is the entrance to huge cave full of secrets. It is named after the nearby settlement, which almost completely serves to ensure the life of this underground attraction: hotels, travel agencies, photo studios, cafes and restaurants, car rental ─ the entire business in the village is focused on tourists.

Few of the guests stay here for a long time, unless, of course, they are fanatical speleologists, because the excursion to the cave itself does not take so much time ─ along with the trip there and back, you can meet it in three hours.

Excursion to the cave

The tour to the cave starts in the village, next to the ticket office. The assembled group is put into an old red tram, which very cheerfully rushes to the entrance to the cave. The walls and windows in the tram are very conditional, so tourists get a lot of thrill long before the start of the descent.

At the entrance to the cave, the group leaves vehicle and rushes underground. Although the length of the local labyrinths is more than 14 kilometers, only three of them are open to tourists. True, for most, this is enough to freeze and get tired: the temperature here does not rise above 13 ° C all year round, and the humidity is almost 100%.

Underground giants

One of the main stages of the tour is the hall with the Minaret stalactite, whose height is five meters. If we consider that in a hundred years this stone giant adds only three centimeters, then we can guess that he is already more than 12 thousand years old. Its coeval is considered to be the giant stalagmite "Trophy", the circumference of which reaches 20 meters, and the color shows the presence of iron in the rock.

light show

In one of the halls, tourists sit down on benches and plunge into absolute darkness for several minutes. Well, after they are waiting for an indescribable sound and light show: the stones seem to bloom, ladies in magnificent dresses, graceful gentlemen, unprecedented animals and exotic plants appear on lifeless blocks.

After several halls, travelers again meet the bed of the Les River, which has become underground (tourists could still see it on the surface - the river flows from the village to the cave, and then disappears shortly before the entrance). The hall through which it flows is called "Styx" ─ here the tour turns from walking to boating.

Well, the end of the journey is a shot from the Maria cannon, which allows you to hear all the power and diversity of the underground echo.

Schedule and tickets

And now for some useful information: the cost of an entrance ticket for an adult (including tram travel, a guided tour of the cave and watching a light show) is 25 €, for a child ─ 13 €.

The cave has a very peculiar work schedule, which often changes, so it is better to check the schedule of excursions in advance. If nothing happens, then the first session starts at 10:00, and the last at 16:00 in winter and 17:00 in summer. In addition, every day there is a two-hour break in the caves, during which tourists are not allowed inside.

If mysterious caves are your passion, and the world of speleologists does not seem intimidating to you, go to a quiet Belgian village, because this is where you can visit the magical underworld.

An-sur-Lec (fr. Grottes de Han-sur-Lesse or fr. Grottes de Han) is a cave of natural origin, one of the main tourist sites in Belgium, attracting about half a million people a year.

Located near the village of the same name in the province of Namur.

The cave was formed as a result of the erosion of a limestone hill under the action of the Les River, which flows under the hill at a distance of about a kilometer. The inside of the cave maintains a constant temperature of 13 °C and a high level of humidity.

You can get into the cave only on a special sightseeing old tram that runs from the center of the village. The tram runs about two kilometers from the village to the entrance to the cave. The tour lasts an average of an hour and a half and includes a light show in the largest underground hall, a boat ride and a cannon salvo demonstrating the acoustics of En-sur-Les.

I must say that there are plenty of caves in Belgium, so there was plenty to choose from. And my choice fell on the caves of An (La Grotte de Han) - the largest and located on our way. It was more difficult with the choice of accommodation.

I did not want to spend the whole day only on the caves. And here is an ambush: you can get into the caves only with an excursion that lasts 1.5 hours. Moreover, the opening hours of the caves in August are as follows: 10.00-12.00 and 13.00-17.30, excursions every half an hour. Therefore, in order to spend as little time as possible, it was decided to come to the ticket office, which is located in the center of En-sur-Les, to the very opening.

And for this we began to look for a hotel in the village itself or the surrounding area. And their choice is not so great, and there are few rooms in them. So they chose Auberge de Faule.

Having settled in the hotel at night, the next morning, at 15 minutes to ten, we went to look for the cashier through the deserted streets of An-sur-Les.

Although "search" is a very strong word, the village is so small that the ticket office was only a few steps from the hotel. So, the ticket office was already open at that time, but there were practically no tourists. We bought a ticket for 10.00 and went to the old tram, which, having covered 4 km of the way, was supposed to take us to the cave.

The morning trip in the open tram passed with a breeze.

Behind the symbolic windows, the mountain stream Les flashed by, the name of which is also present in the name of the village. But before entering the cave, the river disappeared without a trace.

In the first hall of the cave, the guide began his monologue in French. For those who do not speak this language, he distributed booklets in English, German or Dutch. True, it was problematic to read in the twilight, and it’s not so important when there is such beauty around, but to read the information later.

The halls and galleries of the An cave stretch for 14 km, however, for tourist visit only about 3 km. But this is quite enough when you travel through the damp galleries of the cave at a temperature of 13 ° C. Les Cave is located in the Boine limestone massif. And its formation is connected with two main operating forces:

Firstly, this is the mechanical action of the flows of the Les River, the course of which from year to year, from century to century through cracks in rock deeper and deeper into the earth, washing out the halls and galleries, this process began about half a million years ago.

Secondly, rainwater, passing through cracks in the hillside, dissolves the limestone. So drop by drop stalactites, stalagmites, columns and draperies are formed. In a century, these formations can grow only 2-3 cm.

Of greatest interest is the large stalagmite "Minaret", its height is 5 meters, and the history is approximately 12,000 years.

In the cave you can see different colors of concretions. White is the main color and comes from limestone rocks. Other colors: ocher, reds and browns appear when mixed with iron oxide, gray and blue indicate the presence of manganese or lead oxide. However, most of the color variations come from the vegetation on the surface of the hill. The dark color is associated with the presence of a person. Part of the cave, which was visited in the 19th century, is covered with a coating from the smoke of torches.

The most imposing stalagmite on our underground Trophy route. Its height is 7 meters, and its circumference is about 20 m. The stalagmite is located in a hall 20 meters high, and 100 meters underground.

Under the ground, we meet the channel of the Les River (it is no coincidence that one of the halls of the cave is called the Styx), which will lead us to the exit from the cave.

The exit from the cave is in the immediate vicinity of the village.

Five minutes - and we are already in the center ... The streets have become busier, the shops have opened, and the box office of the caves is not overcrowded.

source http://neringa-iris.livejournal.com/