Kastania Cave is one of the most impressive caves in Greece as it constitutes a real “gem” for Monemvasia Municipality. It can be spotted between Kastania village and Ano Kastania, following an extraordinary route from Neapoli –either through Mesohori and Faraklo or through Lahio and Paradisio- where you witness the wilderness of the eastern ending route of Parnonas along with the endless blue sea views of the Myrtoan Sea as a background. Kastania Cave is utterly one of a kind. It covers a 1,500 m² area, although the visitor will definitely enjoy a perfect and absolutely compatible with the environment route stretching at a length of approximately 500 m.
From the very first moment, from the very first step you take, descending towards the cave, there is the constant feeling that you are part of an immense theatrical stage, a scenery that keeps interchanging every time your body stance changes or every time you just glance towards a different direction. A scenery, which regardless of how hard your eyes try to interpret, will barely grant you the pleasure of defining it making the deciphering an unsuccessful feat, since the colors, the formations and all kinds of patterns they both create, are shaped each and every time according to the imagination, experience, images and feelings each one of us possesses. It is utterly impossible to describe the grandeur of Nature with words or convey the beauty of the landscape with photographs or videos. It would without doubt be sheer “hubris” against Nature, which needed roughly three million years to create the decoration of the Cave and its outstanding shapes.
Kastania Cave, rich in density and diversity of colors, is classified second of its kind in Europe. The visitor will move among huge red and white “cascades”, giant multi shaped pillars, “curtains” and “sheets” that stream from the roof and tend to touch you, the “octopuses” and the “corals”, the “elephants” and the “mushrooms”, the “birds” and the “creatures”, which can be specified depending on your imagination. Yet, the beauty and the mystery of the cave are inexhaustible, even if, one “meets” the rare flat stalagmites or the discs, even if, one realizes that the gravity law is actually nonexistent here, even if, one discovers their seven colors, as they are created by calcium carbonate and metal oxides!
It is a magic painting, complemented by its permanent “inhabitants”, dolichopoda, which are blind, deaf and most of all harmless. The tour, which is exceptional, lasts 30 to 40 minutes, while outside the Cave there is plenty of parking room for cars and vehicles.