Cave
The enormous hall is 107 m (351 ft) high, 130 m (430 ft) long and 65 m (213 ft) large. A steep yet comfortable path with atmospheric electric lighting allows the visitor to spend about 45 minutes in this impressive underground world with its rich calcite concretions, the highest of which is no less than 12 m (39 ft) high.
Its exceptional spatial characteristics, and the constant temperatures in the giant cave throughout the year, have led to the placement of two geodetic pendula (which hang down from about 100m above 100 m (330 ft) and are the longest in the world)) and other scientific instruments.
Read more about this topic: Grotta Gigante
Famous quotes containing the word cave:
“The whole cut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites laid open to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato’s cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don’t know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)