Dobšinská Ice Cave

Dobšinská Ice Cave is located in the north of the Gemer region, in the Slovak Paradise National Park. It is one of the largest ice caves in Central Europe. Nowhere outside the Alpine region is there more than 110,000 m3 of ice in the underground with a thickness of more than 25 m in places. Due to its importance and unique decoration, it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The cave was discovered in 1870 by the mining engineer E. Ruffini and a year later local enthusiasts opened it to the public. In 1882, it became the first electrically lit cave in Hungary. It was visited by several important personalities, including the Bulgarian tsar and the Serbian king. In 1890, a concert was held in the Great Hall in honor of Charles Louis of Habsburg. In the past, summer skating was organized in the cave, or the scenes of the fairy tale Popolvár, the largest in the world, were filmed.

You can get to the cave from the parking lot by the main road between Dobšina and Červená Skala in Horehronie. A walkway with an elevation of 130 m will lead you to its entrance from the settlement of the same name in about 25 minutes.

The length of the tour route with an elevation gain of 43 m is 515 m and its completion takes approximately 30 minutes. The temperature differences between the outdoor environment and the interior of the cave represent a burden on the human body, especially in summer. Therefore, it is good to relax before entering the cave so that your body acclimatizes without any problems. The temperature in the icy parts of the cave is in the range of -3.9 ° C to -0.2 ° C.