Madeline's grotto (Le Grotte de Madeleine)

Today we went to Madeline's grotto, a series of caves winding into the mountainside, filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. We had a guided tour, but our guide spoke English with a French accent and I didn't understand her too well.

I took a few pictures as well:




The cave was discovered in 1887 by a shepherd looking for his lost goat in a thunderstorm. He followed the goat's cries and found a cave in the mountainside. As he walked for a while, he came to a huge chamber filled with stalactites and stalagmites, the biggest measuring 30 feet tall and 10 feet wide!



But the entrance he found is not the one we used because it comes out on a cliff face 150 feet above the river. In the 1950s the caves were opened to the public as people found a series of navigable caves while dynamiting.