In the middle of nowhere in Central Jutland, Denmark hides the largest limestone mines in the world – Mønsted.
Before entering the caves, a guide discusses safety procedures and everyone must agree to wear hard hats. It’s even suggested that anyone who takes the hard hat off will be fined.
They take safety seriously in DK
We soon found out that our guide was a comedian and the hard hats were optional.
Rockin’ the hard hats and entering the caves
Upon entering the caves the temperature immediately drops nearly 20 degrees and continues to drop the deeper you walk. In some places the caves feel like an open warehouse, in others you must crawl through.
Yay for caves!
Note that it’s May and we’re wearing wool jackets
over hooded sweatshirts – it was a bit chilly underground
Aside from the relative novelty of wandering around in a cave, the main draw to Mønsted is bats. The winter sees an influx of more than 10,000 bats for hibernation (the largest population in Northern Europe). My visit was during the early May so there were nowhere near that many, but several thousand call Mønsted home year-round.
There are 60km of caverns and passageways, although only the initial 2-3km are open to the public.
Two underground lakes help regulate the temperature of the caves and the combination of constant temp and high humidity make this an ideal place to mature cheese. At any given time 200-250 tons of cheese are housed in Mønsted.
Over the largest lake a video presentation, explaining the formation and history of the cave, is projected on the walls and the water’s surface. The translation wasn’t the best which made the video a bit difficult to follow, but the effect of viewing it on the walls and water was pretty impressive.
A quick 7 miles to the east is the city of Viborg. The two lakes that flank the city offer great boat rides to see some great unique Danish architecture.
All in all the day at Mønsted was wonderful. Its somewhat arresting to stop and think about how much goes on underground that we (collectively) are completely unaware of on a daily basis. Kinda makes me feel like a small fish. Skol!
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what a fun trip! i notice the hard hats didn’t last long. great photos. thanks for sharing!
That’s somewhere I would probably never visit (I’ve found that me + caves don’t go well together), so thanks for letting me experience this through your photos.
I looks like a lot of fun! What i liked the most were those ol wagons.
looks like you had fun even though it was a little cool.
Wow — That is so cool! I’ve only ever toured one cave — Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, Nevada — and it was such a fantastic, surreal experience. Thanks for sharing these photos — Great!
Bats? Guano? I think I’d be wearing the hard hat! 😆