A caver with a headlamp inside a cave passage Under the ground

Guided walk through the Pastena caves

Pastena

Water still runs into the Pastena caves at one end and comes out lower down. The visit follows both halves: the wet branch where the stream is, and the dry one above it, hung with old formations.

How the day goes

  1. Meet the guide at the entrance in the Ausoni hills — everyone goes in as a group.
  2. Down into the active branch, past the Blue Lake chamber with the water standing in it.
  3. Up into the fossil branch: the Weeping Willow room, then the chamber the bats use.
  4. Out into the valley again, with Pastena's old town on the ridge above you.

Steps, damp rock and a group moving together — if enclosed spaces bother you, the Pozzo d'Antullo sinkhole nearby is all sky.

Where it is

Pastena at its real position from Rome, with everywhere else we list behind it — so you can see how far out this one is.

Pastena, and where it is from Rome Pastena drawn at its real position relative to Rome, about 99 minutes by car. The faint dots are the other places we list, so you can see how far out this one is. 99 min Rome Pastena

Open it where the roads are

Takes you to Via delle Grotte, 03020 Pastena (FR), the address the operator publishes.

Getting there

Getting there, the comfortable way

  • 1 h 39drive from the middle of Rome
  • 114 kmeach way

  • Rent a car for the day

    The day stays yours: you leave when you want, stop where you want, and come back when the light goes.

    • You pick it up in Rome and drop it back in Rome
    • No timetable to build the day around
    • The stops on the way are the good part, and they need a car

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Localrent, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Localrent

  • Have a driver take you, door to door

    No parking to find, no wrong turns, and you leave when the day is done.

    • Picked up where you are staying, dropped back there
    • No parking to find and no ZTL to worry about
    • Nobody spends the day driving

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Welcome Pickups, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Welcome Pickups

Also around Pastena

Stalactites lit inside a show cave Under the ground

Pastena caves

Walk into the hill on wet steps, in a guided group of no more than twelve.

€10 per person

Books on grottepastenacollepardo.it

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More under the ground

Cavers with kit bags in a lit cave passage Under the ground

Speleo-canyoning in a hidden cave

A trip that combines caving with canyoning progression techniques: you walk through underground chambers, cross fixed sections and rope traverses with a helmet, harness and head…

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A caver crawling through a low, muddy cave passage Under the ground

Caving in the Simbruini mountains

A guided visit to natural caves inside the Monti Simbruini park, wearing a helmet and head torch, through tunnels and narrow passages.

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We have not verified this one yet. Everything below comes from the operator and we have not checked it — treat it as a lead, not as a listing.

Photograph by Kingfiser, Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0. Not this place: it shows what the day looks like, and will be replaced with the operator's own photograph or ours from the field.

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