Saturday, July 14, 2007

Genga di San Vittore

Ten minutes away by foot from where I was staying are the celebrated "Grotte di Frasassi," a cave system in a hollow hill (really a mountain). One of my earliest memories is of visiting caves with my parents. This was in southern France; I was three. I sat on my father's shoulders and thought about how hard it was to pronounce "shoulders" and "soldiers" properly.

In Frasassi we first walked through a long man-made tunnel. It was a bright, breezy day, and the shock of the darkness, the chill, the stillness was disorienting. Then, through a heavy sliding door, we entered the main hall of the cave system. It's hard to give an idea of how huge it is, but here are the numbers: it measures 200 meters at its highest point; the floor is 165 by 110 meters; the Duomo of Milano could fit into it. At the top, through a tunnel, is the crevice through which amateur cave crawlers discovered the cave system in 1971. As for distant objects, they were even bigger than they looked: having no point of reference, we were unable to gauge the size of these extraordinary shapes, but the guide informed us that the largest stalagmites were as tall as a building of 5 storeys. He also warned us not to touch any stalagmites: the grease from our fingers would prevent the dripping water from depositing its minerals, the stalagmite would turn black and "die." I saw a few of these dying formations along the way. (They can be cleaned and restored to life.) At first I thought that was an odd way to talk about rocks, but as we went deeper and deeper into the mountain, as the guide explained how different formations grew, and as I heard the constant drip of water and felt the walls glistening with moisture, I was won over by the metaphor. It was as if the creatures in the cave had simply decided to withdraw to slower time, to draw out every sensation so that each drop of water was an event. Slowly, slowly the shape nicknamed "piccolo Niagara" would flow over its ledge. Fifty years to grow a straw; fifty thousand to grow a giant. Some of the formations were were red (iron), and looked crumbly, but many were white, and smooth, and sparkling (calcium). They looked like warm wax, like cream, like sheets; it was hard to believe that if I threw myself at them I would get hurt.

(There is a website — www.frasassi.com — but even the wide angle shots in the "virtual tour" don't give a sense of the grandeur of the place.)

After an hour and ten minutes the visit was over; we had walked through one kilometer; the whole cave system is 25 kilometers. I didn't want to go back to the hotel right away, so I walked along the road very slowly, and discovered a stairwell down to the river (torrent) Sentino, on the other side of the road from the entrance to the caves, and somewhat down the hill. The Sentino is lined by cliffs on both sides, and its lowering is somehow linked to the birth of the caves, millions of years ago. There was a tiny pebbly beach at the bottom of the steps, and a couple with a baby, and on the other side of the torrent, a man sitting on a rock in swimming trunks, washing mud off a long rope, and then a rubber bag. I wandered around looking for fish, and wondering what he was doing — his things didn't look like fishermen's gear. Then two of his companions appeared around the bend, walking down the Sentino (which is fast-moving, but shallow and full of rocks). They wore helmets, and coveralls, and were covered in mud from head to toe. A-ha! Spelunkers! They too sat on rocks and started washing their things. Then I found a spring that fed right into the Sentino. It was a small cave — big enough for a beaver to explore, at most — and the water gushing out of it smelled of sulphur. I'd never seen a real spring before, so this was very exciting. Just before that on the beach was a puddle, and the water in it was not still. How could that be? And where did it come from? It seemed quite separate from the spring and the torrent. I looked and looked, and laid twigs on its surface, and finally figured out that one end of this puddle was a tiny tiny spring. At most I could fit three fingers into its opening, which was beside a rock nearly covered in pebbles. If I had dug out the rock I would have figured out more, but that seemed disrespectful. The water was coming out rapidly but soundlessly, without any bubbling or gushing or even burbling, and the crevice and its puddle, so modest and quietly serious, seemed fragile and precious.

I came back that night with some acquaintances, and they were as amazed and moved as I was by the little spring. I'll post a picture soon.