1. The Glacier Cave of Scărișoara
From Gârdea Seacă we follow by car the DC132 for 2 km upstream the Polița Valley to the hamlet of Ghețari. From the road, the blue triangle marker or arrow signs lead us in 10 minutes to the cave entrance. You can visit the cave daily between 10am-5pm, if you pay 15 ron full ticket or 10 ron reduced ticket. We allocated 45 minutes to this main objective, of which 30 minutes actually in the cave.
The Scărișoara Glacier Cave is the largest underground glacier in Romania. It is located at 1165 m altitude, at the edge of the karst plateau Scărișoara, 720 m long and 105 m deep. Access is through a wide 48 m deep and 60 m in diameter. You visit the Great Hall and the Church, where there are some attractive stalagmites made of ice, which are, however, getting smaller from one year to the next. There is also an underground nival, but this is a scientific reserve and only accessible to cavers. The ice block has a volume of 70,000 cubic meters and an average thickness of 16 meters.