Last Easter weekend, Chéri, the kids and I visited the Clamouse cave: La Grotte de Clamouse. They organised a special tour for children inside the caves, including an egg hunt (‘chasse aux œufs’). Looking for eggs in a cave seemed to me to be quite an exciting way for the kids to celebrate Easter. Especially when they turned out to be dragon eggs…
Magical cave
A group of Montpellier speleologists discovered the 6-kilometre long cave in 1945. Nowadays you can visit a 1-kilometre circuit of the cave with a guide, who also speaks English. La Grotte de Clamouse is known as one of the most beautiful in the Languedoc region. An underground river hollowed out the cave over a great period of time. Even better, there are many crystallisations of calcite and aragonite, which give the cave a fairy-like appearance. It’s particularly magical when you walk through the ‘Couloir Blanc’, or the ‘White Corridor’.
Three guards
You can visit a number of ‘chambers’ to show the variety of the cave. For example, you will be able to see the ‘Salle des Excentriques’ (‘Chamber of Eccentrics’) where you can admire rare crystals. You will also encounter a lot of dripstone formations that can’t help but capture the imagination. During our visit, we met the three guards of the cave: an eagle, some mini-dragons and a huge jellyfish (or ‘meduse’, it just sounds more beautiful in French!). When you’re in the middle of the cave, the guide suddenly turns off the lights and starts a light and sound show. An awe-inspiring sight, and not just for the kids!
Grand Site
The Clamouse cave is a so-called ‘Grand Site of France‘ and one of the ‘Sites d’Exception en Languedoc‘. It is located in the national park ‘Les Gorges d’Hérault‘, between the villages of Saint-Jean-de-Fos and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. The site is well worth a visit, and you can even combine it with seeing the ‘Pont du Diable’ and one of the most beautiful villages of France: Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.
