Through the chambers of Potpecka cave

As I was sitting at my kitchen table one afternoon, I was thinking, where I shoud go next? What could be the next place, that I can visit and write about it, in an interesting way for the people who will read it, and get a wish to visit it, too… I was thinking Italy, or Switzerland, all those beautiful and famous places, so many photos I’ve seen of… But, you know, since I’m a student still, I didn’t have much money to afford myself some luxury places, so I was being economical and fit good prices with nice places. Rain was outside, and it was some moody feeling about it, and suddenly the idea came to my mind… why don’t I visit the cave near the town… explore it and write about it, hopefully interesting text abou it… it wouldn’t cost me much of the money, and maybe I can give people some interesting story about the place they probably didn’t hear of before…

The Potpece cave is located near the village of Potpece, near the town of Uzice, on the bank of the Great Morava. The cave is near the highway, and yet hidden away. It is one of five caves in Serbia that are prepared for tourist visits.

The entrance to the Potpece cave is one of the biggest in the Balkans. It is over 50 meters high and 12 meters wide at the bottom and even 22 meters wide at the top, thus making it the true wonder of nature. The Potpece cave is an erosional cave, formed by the waters of subterranean rivers which descend underground in the Dreznik valley and follow an underground course to re-emerge from the cave or from springs in front of the cave, to create two kilometers long Petnica cave river. The cave comprises two levels of channels: the older – the Upper Caveand the more recent – the Lower Cave.

The explored section of the cave, which is 8km long is full of different types of passages and chambers, but for tourists it’s 555 m long section available, The path leading in and out of the cave has over 700 steps. It is interesting that this cave has no name. The name “Potpece” comes from the name of the nearby eponymous village, that was, on the other hand, named after the cave – “the village beneath the cave”.

The temperature inside of the cave is pretty much the same over the year, and it is about 9 degrees.

View at the entrance of the cave...

By the way, the entrance of the cave is in a shape of the huge ‘U’ letter, just upside down… and it can be noticeable from the great distance… so as you are approaching it and getting closer, you got chills over your body, because of it’s greatness...

At this point from the photo first photo, you are going to the left, across the green bridge and you are starting to climb up the stairs…

Then, when you get somewhere in the middle of the stairs, you have some view like this…

View from the stairs

As you are moving forward, you are getting to some kind of a gate, where you pass into the first of the chambers… that is not typical chamber because it is open on the one side…

This is the chamber that represents some kind of an entrance to the main one…the hole you can see in the center of the image is a pass after the gate, so you are practically moving through the rocks.

The first chamber that's actually a kind of an entrance to the cave

There besides the stairs, you have a chance to see some of the interesting sculptures, I would say… that people back in a time would make out of a materials. And there are some pretty stuff to see, with a very nice design…

So, if you turn to the right, you can see how that ‘U’ entrance looks like from the inside…

Then, more up the stairs, there’s one of the main attractions of this cave… and the other thing that the cave is famous about, besids the high entrance…and that is, that the shape of the entrance reminds of the Mammoth with a pretty nice view on the village

This Byzantine chamber is called ‘The Attic “, cause it so high above, and moving forward you pass through the ‘Main Hallway’’ to get to the ‘Passage of the Hope’’…

We entrance to the first chamber, and it is really dark, still warm… but you can sense that creepiness that caves can make you feel… We are walking down the path, it is very wet, puddles everywhere…you can see first cave jewelry and stalactities.

The guide is showin us all the beautiful shapes that mother nature has created, telling us some science fact about origins of the cave.

As we are walking ahead, it is getting clear that we are deeper in the cave, the temperature drops, and I’m pulling out my sweetshirt to wear… the passage is very narrow, and stalactities and stalagmities are making your way even harder, making you feel you are in some kind of big dinosaur mouth, and those forms are his teeth…

Then we are getting to the first door, and the guide says that the air is very clear inside, and very healthy for our lungs… so breathe deep, he says while he is smiling, opening the door.

When we passed the door, the difference was clear… suddenly you feel like you are somewhere on the top of the mountain cause it’s very cold, and you can feel the cold air blowing through the holes… It’s completely dark, and he turn on flashlight and we continue our journey…

Then he stops for a minute, and it was very interesting to me, because he stood there by the light, with the pose of the body which reminded me of some vilian from the movies

He said, look to the left… that’s one of our first stops… The wall… We looked to the left side, and there was a wall with very interesting relief… I couldn’t tell, but it reminded me of something familiar... I was still starring at it…

Then he started... On this wall, if u look better, there is a head of the dragon ( on the left side of the photo ), and because of it this chamber is called ‘Chamber of Dragons’. It is believed that many years ago, while those dragons were alive, from the hole in the wall, the water was coming out. The water that was a cure for women who had a problem with giving a birth. So they would drink a little, and had healthy pregnancy. For some reason that source of water disappeared over time and dragons got stoned. They say if the water get running ever again, those dragons would come to life, too.

So, I asked him… if the water ever come through again, we will have real dragons?

Yeah, I guess so…

So, as we are walking to the next chamber, the cave has a lot of cave jewelry, hanging out of the ceiling like in this photo, and among them, a lot of interesting shapes that was created naturally through thousand of years. U can see a lot of shapes of birds, faces, bodies, even some stuff that remind u from some stuff we use in every day life, to some shapes that reminds you of Snow white and seven dwarfs… They even got one by the name of Mona Lisa and Monika Beluchi… And in fact, a few of the figures, really does have a figure of the women…

I couldn’t actually have that recorded because the part with all this interesting shapes is full of the bats, and it is called ‘Hallway of the bats’’ … So I tried with no light, and it didn’t came in the right way because it was too dark…

The next stop and one of the final was an interesting one… As we were heading back, because we reached the point where was the end of the road… at least the one that’s opened for the tourists, we stopped by this hole… it was illuminted by red lights, which gave it much bigger impression… By it’s shape, it reminded me of an giant egg that was holding some creature,and, in some way, it got to escape, and the sides of the egg remained open...

The story tells that during the old times ( around 150 and more yrs ago ) people used to live there in order to protect themselves during the war. That cave seemed like a safe place for them to live, and protect their children. They had the basic things to survive, and they were safer there to live without thinking they could be ambushed or killed... And when people would die, they would bury them in that hole. It was a little wierd standing next to the pottential grave, looking at it and knowing that a dead people were there. I lifted myself on my feet a little bit to see if there are any skeletions inside of it, but couldn’t see a thing… well, let’s believe in the story, cause it is a good one…

I called this place an ‘Ancient Grave’...

The cave is open for the tourist during the summer time.

And one tour is about 40 minutes through the cave, forward and backward…

If you don’t know where is it or how to get there…

From the direction of Belgrade to reach the oddly shaped Potpece cave, take the highway to Montenegro and halfway between Pozega and Uzice (between the villages Uzici and Gorjani) nearby of the Uzici, train stops. Exit the highway and an asphalt road will take you to this cave.

A railroad passes through this part of the country so it is also possible to come here by train. If you are coming by bus, i suggest you go to Uzice or Pozega where you can catch a local bus or a taxi to the cave.

If you are in an opportunity to visit this location – do so… It is an experience more, and it is a very cool place to go to. Get yourself and a friend and dive into the Chambers of Potpece… and let me know If those Dragons came to life ;)

MilloshZ