2022
On the way to Piran in Slovenia, we had set a visit to a cave in the Karst as an intermediate stop. Undecided between Postumia and San Canziano, we opted for the latter as it is less touristy and because, ecologically, it seemed ugly to enter the bowels of the earth by train. We arrived just in time for the guided tour.
From the visitor center, we walked 500 meters in a group, always downhill, to reach the actual entrance to the caves. A long artificial tunnel leads into the cave of silence. Here stalactites and stalagmites in some rooms, nothing exceptional and not even so well valued in truth. The cave enjoys, or undergoes depending on the way of seeing, a faint illumination, almost reproducing the light of carbide lamps or torches, almost in an attempt to give the visit the spell of the first discovery, without ever reaching the sensationalism of the fired and colored lights seen in other caves. The entrance to the noise cave is obviously accompanied by the change of sounds. We pass from a world of muffled sounds to the disturbing roar of the river that flows at the bottom of the immense underground canyon that opens up before our view. You look out from a balcony on the opposite side to the flow of the river, and you can hardly begin to see its flow, between lakes, waterfalls and rapids. We are obviously in a period of lean water but, during exceptional floods, like the one mentioned on the wall at the beginning of the descent into the canyon in the late 1800s, the water reaches unimaginable heights, this point is about 80 meters above sea level. height from where flowing the river now. I think that if I knew how to swim, it would be of little use to me. Getting used to the dim light, you begin to glimpse curious details and the result of so much work. The walls are crossed by numerous stepped paths that have been built since the 1800s and run through the cave for over 12 kilometers, to facilitate explorations in their early days.
The lights, drawing a long luminous snake, follow the whole side of the mountain, accompanying the path of the current tourist path. You pass over a 46 meter high bridge, which passes over the canal that continues for other kilometers and passes through the largest hall with a height of 142 meters, over 300 meters in length and almost 100 in width. (the Pirelli skyscraper 127 m., the Milan cathedral 108) Today it cannot be visited due to Covid. The Reka River, which means river in Slovenian, sinks as a result of erosion, but also of the corrosion of the limestone rocks right here in San Canziano. I remember that already at school, we heard about the mystery of the karst rivers, in particular the Timavo, already praised by Virgil, which was known to sink into the cavities of the earth, but then no one knew where they emerged.
In the last decades and especially in the last ten years, researches have been carried out with more modern methodologies, but which have not yet revealed all the mysteries. Following the line of the known abysses, scientists and speleologists have carried out experiments, introducing a non-toxic substance, so called fluorescent, upstream and then detecting, with suitable instruments, its transit on the bottom of the downstream cavities. If I look at the flow of the river, under the precipice, it certainly does not go flat, it is a succession of jumps and waterfalls, but to think that to detect the passage of the substance, a few kilometers away, it took 4 days and over 40 to reach the Risorgive del Timavo, makes you imagine what vastness of water there is deep in the Karst. Also think that, a few kilometers before the caves of San Canziano, the Reka passes through another sinkhole, which in lean periods, manages to take away all the water of the river before it can reach San Canziano. The water that disappears here, appropriately traced with the substance, does not resurface in Duino in the resurgences of the Timavo and no one knows what happens to it! There are a number of mysteries yet to be revealed, especially considering that it is known for sure that the water reaches points underground at -100 meters below sea level.
You go up, with a considerable amount of steps, until you come out where the water enters the cave, near two sunken sinkholes with very high walls, joined together by a natural bridge.
Too bad that the restrictions due to Covid have prevented, except for the presentation, a guided tour worthy of the name, therefore we had to collect this information on the Trieste speleological sites.
Obviously, on our return, we also looked for the resurgences of the Timavo in Duino, also surrounded by pearls of art and history.
Three lakes are the springs, but nearby the church of San Giovanni in Tuba with Roman remains in the apse, a mosaic and many finds, including some of a previous pagan temple. Stories of destruction during the barbarian invasions, of rescues of relics belonging to more saints and the construction of the current building in the Gothic style at the end of the 1300s. Building rebuilt in the late 40s, after having been destroyed by the two world wars. It is certainly strange to think that there were trenches here, a few hundred meters from the sea.
But the surprises don't end there. Not far away, by the sea, there is a paleontological site of incredible importance. Discovered by chance by a young scholar, a rocky spur almost on the beach, in which was found, in 1994, the first whole Italian dinosaur, but also of Europe. Hadrosaurus, 70 million years old, a new species, but this discovery undermines everything that was believed in the territory of those years. In fact it was believed that our plains were covered by warm seas, and instead the dinosaurs needed vast plains to be able to live. Ginettaccio would say everything to be redone! Antonio, the name of the dinosaur, 4 meters long, was not alone. Bruno was also found, who with his 5 meters and more in length is the largest dinosaur in Italy and also in Europe. Antonio is visible at the natural history museum of Trieste, while Bruno is being restored. Certainly the quarry will give other surprises, it is thought there are about ten dinosaurs still to be extracted, it is not known whether or not as complete as the first two. However, this very interesting place can only be visited on Sundays. We have so many treasures in our country, but we don't have the skills to manage them. A site like this, in some other country in the world, would have triggered a rush to the natural park, with visitor center and more. Here, a willing cooperative organizes guided tours with discovery games for the little ones, but who knows this Italian Jurassic park? Who has still studied the Timavo and its mystery with the characteristics of the Karst at school? I don't think many. I am discovering in these travels, places and phenomena for which I know, I have to thank my teacher Piero Franceschetti, poet, painter, educator, who stimulated my thirst for knowledge by keeping it alive for these years in which, with the "maturity", I can discover and appreciate what he surely would have liked to have been able to discover it as a young man, but it is not always possible to do so, for many reasons, not least the economic one.
Ciao @plavarda,
Non sono ancora riuscito a trovare le foto della Gola del Diavolo ma ho invece trovato, a proposito di ferrovie abbandonate, una foto di una escursione siciliana lungo il fiume Platani, cha attraversa le provincie di Palermo e Agrigento fino alla sua foce, nell'omonima riserva naturale.
