Demänovská Cave of Liberty

While in the Low Tatras, we could not pass by the most beautiful caves in Slovakia. We decided to visit the most popular one, the Demänovská Cave of Liberty.

To reach the cave we had to go south from Liptovský Mikuláš, pass the motorway junction and continue on road No. 584 towards the Demänovská Valley. Right by the road there is a well-marked car park with a large sign Demänovská jaskyňa slobody. From the car park you have to walk a few hundred meters uphill to reach the entrance. The entrance is in a large building with a hotel on the upper floor.

A few words about how Slovaks make money from tourists. First, parking: just 5 euros for leaving your car in the forest car park. Next - entrance fee (8 Euro adult, 4 Euro Child). Another charge, which was quite strange - taking pictures for 10 euros, which seemed quite unjustified to us. It is interesting that photographers get a special reflective sticker that allows them to take pictures freely.

In the cave there are two routes. We chose the shorter one because we were not sure how the children would cope with a tour deep underground. We saw the most beautiful parts. The cave is very beautiful and made a great impression on us. The shorter route is 1150 m long with a height difference of 86 meters, and the tour takes an hour.

Fun fact: the cave was discovered on 3 August 1921 by Alojz Král, a teacher from Moravia, with the help of Adam Mišura and other explorers. The summer was so dry that the Demänovka stream dried up, so they could walk along its dry bed into the underground halls. Král named the cave Chrám slobody, which means Temple of Freedom.

The tour can be done only with an organized group, which starts every 1.5 hours. When planning a trip to the cave, it is worth remembering that it is closed every Monday. The cool thing was that the tour was in Polish. Most of the tourists in our group came from Poland. The tour was well prepared. All parts of the cave had lights, so we could enter the cave without flashlights. Periodically there were stopping points where we waited for the rest of the group. While waiting, we were able to hear a story about the place where we currently were.

Inside the cave the year-round temperature is 7 °C with considerable moisture. In winter it is even warmer inside than outside.

Our children bravely took the route. It was not so easy because we had to climb about 900 stairs. Justine had a slower pace than the rest of the group and for part of the route she was carried in her dad's arms. Throughout the whole route she was telling us how she knew about caves and bats that live here. We had a lot of fun.

After visiting the cave we became hungry. On the way we stopped at the Atlas restaurant in Liptovský Mikuláš. Its popularity surprised us, because there were no free tables. Fortunately, the staff opened the second part of the restaurant for us - the VIP area. In truly luxurious conditions we ate dinner there. Cheap and good, so we can definitely recommend this restaurant.