Snezhanka cave

Worth a detour

Only about 145 metres of passage, which makes this the smallest of the Rhodope show caves and the most densely decorated — the last chamber holds a white stalagmite a little over a metre tall that somebody named Snow White, and the name took the whole cave with it. The catch is the approach: the car park sits some 800 metres below and the path up is steep, twenty to forty minutes.

Story

Background

Three cavers — Boris Evtimov, Gencho Kotsev and Zhoro Zlatarev — found the cave on 3 January 1961, in a hillside above Peshtera with no obvious opening. Archaeologists have since linked traces in it to Thracian use, so some part of it was known long before.

What makes it worth the climb is density rather than size. The route runs about 145 metres through four chambers, and the formations are packed close enough that you are never more than a few steps from something. The last of them, the Magic Hall, holds the figure that named the place: a stalagmite a little over a metre high, white and vaguely human in outline, which somebody in 1961 decided looked like Snow White. Bulgarian caves are usually named after devils and throats; this one went the other way.

The operator has moved away from fixed guided groups — visitors go in with an audio guide, so there is no waiting for a tour to fill, and the cave opens every day of the year with last entry a little after five. The walk is the part to plan for. Leave the car in the free park roughly 800 metres below the entrance and climb a stepped path with wooden handrails; allow twenty to forty minutes each way, more with children, and do not attempt it in smooth-soled shoes.