Vilenica Cave was formed in the Cretaceous limestones of the Lipica formation and, due to the flow of an underground river, runs from northwest to southeast. Its layout is a single, sloping tunnel, full of speleothems and collapses. These we meet already in the first hall, but their number and variety only increase with depth.
Numerous collapses and speleothems indicate that the cave is several million years old; nevertheless, its exact age is almost impossible to determine. Another mystery is the underground river that hollowed out the cave – it is hard to establish which one it was, since the cave is much closer to the surface today due to the erosion (or denudation) than it was at the time of its formation. At that point, Vilenica was completely submerged.
The entrance to the cave was formed later, namely due to the collapse of the original ceiling more than 60.000 years ago. In the cave, we can admire various dripstone formations – stalactites, stalagmites, columns, curtains, organs, sig waterfalls, tubes, and helectites. The reddish-brown shades of the sig formations are the result of iron oxide secretions.
WONDROUS HALLS WITH COUNTLESS SPELEOTHEMS
The fact that the entrance to the Vilenica cave was created by a ceiling collapse is indicated by a large collapse cone, which leads down to the first room, the Dance Hall, adorned with a mighty dark gray stalactite column. The final event of the Vilenica International Literary Award has been held there every year since 1986.
We continue through the second chamber, called the Dripstone Avenue, and reach the Red Hall which marks the boundary of color in the cave – from this point on, reddish-brown shades predominate. The final point of the tour is the Fairy Hall, in the middle of which proudly stands the tallest stalagmite in the cave, reaching an impressive height of 20.3 meters.
From the Fairy Hall, the cave descends dramatically into the non-tourist section called the Fabris Passage (Fabrisov rov). The bottom of the cave reaches a depth of 191 meters. The cave is over a kilometer (1.200 m) long in total, and 450 meters of the cave are landscaped and illuminated for tourist tours.
