The Women's Cave

Peştera Muierilor (The Women's Cave) is a splendid natural monument situated in the Getic Depression of Oltenia, Baia de Fier village, Gorj County. Crossing the limestone, Râul Galbenul (the Yellow River) has digged on the right side of the Galbenul Gorges the most visited speleological objective from Romania. Among the thousands of caves from the Carpathian Mountains few have such a rich past in events as this cave.


The name of the cave comes from the middle-ages: when the men were gone to fight, the women and children were hiding in the cave, transformed in a shelter, well protected and undiscovered by the invaders.


The galleries, resulted after the Karstification of the limestone due to the infiltration of the water of the river, are about 3600 m and are disposed in 4 levels. The lower level is divided in two sectors: from North (1500 m) and the South (880 m) with a scientific importance, being a speleological reservation and inaccessible for tourists. The upper level, at 40 m altitude from the valley level, is composed by a horizontal gallery (573 m long), electrified and arranged for visit, which crosses the limestone band on all its length and at which is added, till the length of 1228 m, a hardly accessible network of galleries.


There are too many beauties to be described in a few words. The visitor must see halls, galleries, and formations like the Little Dome, the Altar Hall, the Blooded Rock (a fine embroidery from ferrum oxide flows), the Cupola (17 m high, where a bat colony emits a sound like a bell), or the stoned waterfall, the Turk's Hall (a formation like an Oriental mantle with a fez on the head), the Odalisque, Santa Claus, Big Dome, Wounded Hen Hawk, the Wonders Hall, with an infinity of forms, sizes, colors. The columns and odd figures make the image unbelievable. Back to the Turk Hall passing through the Gate, one arrive in place where the ceiling is at 80 cm height, and next in the Guano Hall with a network of galleries, refuge for the cave fauna. The bats colonies add to the gray ceiling black spots. Excepting the bat species - Myotis sp., Miniopterus sp., Rhinolophus sp. - the cave fauna is composed by myriapods, pseudo-scorpions, spiders and many inferior invertebrates.


On the right of this hall is the entrance in the South inferior level which cannot be visited being a scientific resevation (here is the Bears Gallery, because here were found many Ursus spelaeus skeletons. In this cemetery of prehistoric animals were identified skeleton remains from hyenas, lions, foxes, wild goats, wolves, wild boars; here are also a calcite hall with beautiful veils Woman Veil and the Pearl Hall with many natural beauties; arriving to the last leader is the Musterian Hall, where were found cultural objects, proofs of the human life (30,150 ± 800 years B.C.)