Once in Capo Caccia, you will have to park your car and retrieve your ticket at the ticket counter, and then the fun begins: walking down the 654 steps of the “Escala del Cabirol” (Billy Goat Stairs), designed appositely for the caves’ visitors and opened in 1959. It’s about 25 km (15.5 miles) from the city. From Alghero, take State Road SS127 Bis to Fertilia, then switch to SP 55 to Capo Caccia. In order to visit Neptune’s Grotto, you will need to get to the promontory of Capo Caccia (the one you can see from Alghero Bastions). The booking on the website doesn’t include the ticket but is only a way to save your spot. You will need to reserve your spot with the app/website Alghero Experience: once you have saved your information and booked the visit, you can buy the ticket at the caves’ entrance. You can’t get to the caves and simply buy a ticket, too. Tours depart regularly in a variety of languages which include English, German, French, Spanish and obviously Italian and last about 45 minutes to an hour. Included in the ticket there’s a guided tour. Neptune’s Grotto tickets are €14 (full price) whereas reduced tickets for kids under 7-14, people over 65 years old, and for groups of more than 25 people are €10. If you are going there by boat, much will depend on favorable weather (it’s impossible to access the caves with a rough sea). The site is open every day except on Christmas, from 9:00 am to either 5:00 pm or 7:00 pm (last admission) depending on the season. Practical Information To Plan Your Visit Neptune’s Grotto opening hours My last recommendation is to bring a camera with you as you will want to take photos for sure. The deeper you venture into the caves, the more you’ll discover about them: the guide will tell you every secret about the various rooms, which all have very suggestive names (such as the Hall of Ruins and the Royal Palace Hall) I don’t want to spoil the whole experience for you! Around it, several stalactites and stalagmites decorate the room: the most important of them, the so-called Holy Water Font, is more than two meters tall and serves as a small water holder for the birds living in the Neptune’s Grotto. The first room is the one where you can see the famous La Marmora Lake, one of the biggest saltwater basins in Europe. Whether you get to the caves on foot (via the stairs) or by boat, you’ll end up at the same entry point, and will start your guided tour of the place, which will show you several rooms carved in the limestone by centuries of water dripping. The caves are about 4 km broad – it’s not a huge complex – but the part that’s actually safe to visit and therefore open to the public is just a few hundred meters wide.ĭespite these reduced dimensions, there is plenty to see and the visit lasts overall more than one hour, especially because you can’t visit on your own: the only available option is to join a guided tour, for safety reasons and to protect the site. Some parts of the complex, deemed more dangerous, are still reserved to expert speleologists and closed to the public, but contrary to many other caves in Sardinia, Neptune’s Grotto have been explored in their totality. Several important persons, such as La Marmora and John Warre Tyndale, have visited the caves and mentioned them in their writings. Official records mention a fisherman finding the place in the 1700s, but historians agree on the fact that ancient populations must have at least visited these places, especially because the nearby complex of Porto Conte was notoriously inhabited since the pre-historical ages (tons of tools have been found inside the caves) and the Romans had a village there.Īnyway, Neptune’s Grotto has been thoroughly explored only in relatively modern times. There is no certain proof of when the Grotte di Nettuno were discovered first. Practical Information To Plan Your Visit.
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