We visited the Mramornica cave in Brtonigla: an organist, bacon, bats, and crabs await you.

Text and photos: Anto Ravlić all rights reserved

When you go down the 14 steps through the narrow entrance, the tour through the two halls takes 40 minutes.

If they started to list all that Istria can offer tourists, they would not stop for hours. The land of wine, truffles, olives, waterfalls... but also the land of caves, pits, and caverns. Tourists in Istria, Croatia, can choose between three caves and two hollows. We went to a cave on a trip closer to the center of the country.

A marble house is hidden just a kilometer from Brtonigla. It's easy to get there. When you leave Brtonigla towards Novigrad, after one kilometer, there is a signpost that you should not miss.

Aquapark Istralandia is only three kilometers away as the crow flies. Perhaps it is an excellent combination to warm up in Istralandia and then cool down in Mramornica, which cools in summer and warms in winter with a temperature of 14 degrees. The cave was opened for tourists in 2008 and is managed by agrotourism Sterle, which is only 400 meters from the entrance to the shelter. Although the Mramornica cave is not as exposed as some other Istrian caves and pits, there is no shortage of tourists in the middle of summer. In July and August, eight tours descend into the cave. Weather permitting, the cave doors are open to tourists from April to November.

We are led into the cave by Nikolina, who normally deals with speleology and knows Istrian pits and caves. The entrance to the cave is relatively narrow and steep. However, there are only 14 steps, and you are already underground.

The cave is called Marmornica because of its white color. The locals discovered it, but it is not known when. The first written document about the cave is a letter from the Italian travel writer Albert Fortis who described the cave in 1771. After that, the local population visited the cave until Frank Sterle, whose family has lived in this area for more than 200 years. , decided to decorate the cave and open it for visitors on June 1, 2008, explains Nikolina, who leads the 40-minute tours.

Marmornica has two spacious halls. The main one is already ten meters underground as soon as you descend the stairs. The second hall is 20 meters underground. The most frequent visitors to Mramornica are Germans. Then the Dutch, here and there, the Italians. There are Englishmen and Americans. Recently, there have been more Czechs and Poles. Excursions arrive in the off-season, and kindergartens can also come. They descend 20 meters underground, but it is probably the way to the earth's center for a child's imagination. Visits to Marmorniki go from generation to generation. Delly by its beauty, visitors to the cave decided

to return to the shelter after a few years, bringing their family and friends with them because the lair remained in their memory when they visited it as students.

Each cave is a real test of the visitor's imagination. If you turn on your imagination, you will recognize spaghetti and curtains in the stalactites and stalagmites in Mramornica. Nikolina discovers with a flashlight that concerts are also held in Mramornica. In imagination, of course.

Look at the organ, the organist, and the audience.

If you entered Mramornica somewhat hungrily, bacon is drying in front of you. The most delicious red parts owe their color to the red Istrian land through which the water passes. A unique attraction is helictites, one of the few types of seagrass that grows without gravity. The marble house has its inhabitants. Cave crabs that are not blind. And that's why flashing in the cave is forbidden.

The residents are also from Šims. We ask Nikolina if there is any truth in the stories that bats will get tangled in ladies' hair.

- Those are just stories, says Nikolina.

The locals came down to Mramornica because of the rainwater.

- In the past, it was believed that the water was healing, so that was one of the reasons for descending into the cave. Normally, they will find it after a lot of rain, explains Nikolina, who at one point asked if we wanted to see what the cave looks like when the lights go out. Of course. And what does it look like? Complete darkness and a hint of light reach the first hall from the narrow entrance.

An interesting legend is that Mramornica reaches as far as four kilometers into the sea. The cave stretches 200 meters in length. It is said that there is another exit from the cave near the cemetery in Brtonigla, which is located a kilometer from Mramornica. The assumption is that the second exit was buried by an earthquake over the years.