Grottes de Cravanche

Cravanche

Beneath the wooded hills overlooking Belfort, the Cravanche grottoes form an underground network formed at the junction of Jurassic limestone and Vosges schist. Explored as early as 1835, they served for a time as a natural icehouse for storing beer, before being properly uncovered on 2 March 1876, during a blasting operation to extract stone for building Fort du Salbert. Excavations carried out between 1891 and 1899 revealed a necropolis dating from around 4000 to 3000 BC: about a dozen skeletons, laid out in a flexed position, head tilted and knees drawn up to the chest, accompanied by decorated pottery, tools and stone weapons, now kept at the Belfort History Museum. Some bones, gripped by limestone concretions over the millennia, appear embedded in the rock, forming a geological sight that is as moving as it is strange. Designated a protected site in 1911, the cave has been closed to the public since 2008 to protect a colony of bats that hibernates there, but its entrance, visible from the path, continues to draw curious visitors and caving enthusiasts. A necropolis-grotto and former icehouse, Cravanche stacks up, beneath the soil of the Belfort region, several layers of a little-known underground history.

Getting there : Closed to the public since 2008 (to protect a hibernating bat colony); entrance visible from the path, occasional special tours organised from time to time

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound