Croatia Forum

[Filip]

At the Velebit Nature Park, located in the heart of the Lika region, a new kind of organised visit has been launched recently. In collaboration with the national railway company, Hrvatske željeznice, excursion trains are now bringing tourists to the Cerovac Caves, the most attractive locality in the park. The national railway company has already set up excursion trips like these to, for example, Ogulin, Mount Klek, and the Lonjsko polje and Kopacki rit wetlands… The Cerovac Caves consist of three cave systems – the Upper, Central and Lower Caves, the latter, about 700 metres in legnth, being to only one currently open to visitors. The caves were discovered during the construction of the Zagreb – Split railway line at the start of the past century and, on account of its wealth of cave “decorations” by far surpasses all other speleological structures in Croatia. Because of their unique beauty the caves were in 1961 given legal protection as a protected geological natural monument and were in 1981 made a part of the Velebit Nature Park. Besides this, the caves are also one of the largest cave bear sites in Croatia. Along with the numerous archaeological remnants from the Bronze and Iron Ages, to which collected pottery, bone points and bronze clasps bear witness, fossilized human bones have also been found in them and a bronze axe that clearly belonged to the so-called cave bear hunter people. The “Nature Park Velebit” Public