Gutman's Cave, Gauja National Park, Latvia

 I was in Riga, Latvia, in August 2022 and did a tour to the Gauja National Park. This covers a large area northeast of the capital, Riga. The town of Sigulda is within the park and is 50 km from Riga. There were several caves shown on my map and I was able to visit one of them.

Gutmanis Cave, Gutman's Cave, Gutmana Ala, is the widest and highest cave in the Baltic, located on the Gauja River in the Gauja National Park, Latvia. It is 19 m deep, 12 m wide and 10 m high and formed of sandstone. There is a spring in the cave.

The name good man is from a legend that in ancient times the cave was home to a good man who used the water of the spring to heal people.

On the walls are inscriptions from 17th c. This makes it one of the oldest tourist attractions in Latvia.

The legend of the Rose of Turaida began in the cave. 

The Gauja National Park is the first national park in Latvia and protects the ancient valleys of the Gauja River and its tributaries. There are many slopes, valleys, springs, and  sandstone cliffs and caves located closely together. The red sandstone rocks date back 370 - 387 million years from the Devonian period.

View of the Gauja valley from Turaida castle and from the road bridge with a cable car and the Latvian flag.

As already mentioned, the rocks date back to the Devonian period, roughly 387 million years ago. The cultural centre in Sigulda is called Siguldas devons and is named after the geological period of the sandstone rocks.

See more on Gutmanis Cave on Wikipedia. And other caves in the area.

Underground London - a walk in Kingsway tram subway

 I have already blogged about The Kingsway tram subway in London, having only seen the entrance from the surface. To do a tour inside had been on my "to do list" for a while, and in March 2022 I was able to make a booking for a tour over the Queen's Platinum Jubilee weekend in early June 2022. Tours are organised by London Transport Museum Hidden London and will run in June and July.

This is the tram entrance to Holborn station. The poster shows the original shape, an arched entrance, which was later enlarged and squared in 1929 to accommodate the double-decker trams.

The major road of Kingsway opened in 1905, named after King Edward VII. The surrounding area was surrounded by a maze of small streets and slum dwellings, with high crime rates and establishments of ill repute. It was intended to be a new business district for London and was built as a wide boulevard with grand office buildings. Transport was then needed to bring in the workers.

The tramway opened in 1906 having been built by the London County Council. It was part of a renewal programme for the Holborn and Aldwych areas. It joined the North and South London tram systems.

These are the only surviving tram rails in London (excluding the modern present day system around the Croydon area). 

These are the pedestrian entrances to the station, looking south and then north -

The walls in places are lined with glazed bricks

This is a double height escape niche

The ceiling supports -

The last tram ran in July 1952 as trolleybuses had become more popular. The southern end was converted into a road tunnel. Since then the tunnel has been used for filming. Union Street is a fictional station in the film The Escapist.

The only other use is for storage by the council. Looking back to the tram entrance -

During the construction of Crossrail, a shaft was dug in the floor to allow access to make the new tunnels. After completion the area was restored so it visually looks in its original state.

This light above the entrance is an original, whereas the two at the start of the ramp are replicas -

See more on Wikipedia and IanVisits.

Underground London - Carshalton Park grotto

 The grotto is a small manmade structure in Carshalton Park, in the London borough of Sutton. According to Wikipedia, the grotto was built in 1724. It is located in the southeast corner of the park. A now dry canal extends north from the grotto and can clearly be seen on this Google image -

The canal extends along Carshalton Place, visible on this Maps.Me image -

I walked in from Carshalton High Street and this is the vertical green strip, north of Talbot Rd -

An looking back -

This is the canal section between Talbot Rd and Ruskin Rd, looking south -

There is some water at the southern end, by Ruskin Rd -

This is the main area, looking towards the grotto -

And the grotto -

Access into the grotto is blocked by locked gates. I couldn't see much looking in through the centre gate, apparently the roof was covered with shells when built. 

Looking back down the canal from the top of the grotto, not sure what the concrete cap is in the second photo -

It must have looked quite attractive in the days when water was flowing out of the grotto -

There is a good history of the park and grotto on yourlocalguardian . And a short feature on Wandle Valley . According to Historic England, the grotto is a listed building.

Grotte du Lazaret, Nice, France

In Oct 2021 I was on a cruise ship that docked at Nice, south of France. Luckily it was a small ship and we were able to dock in the port, rather than the cruise terminal which is much further away from town. I spotted a cave marked on my map which was very close to the port, so had a google and found it is an archaeological cave and worth a visit. 

Grotte du Lazaret Nice

An archaeological cave site of prehistoric human inhabitation, situated in the eastern suburbs of Nice, very close to the port. The entrance is off Boulevard Franck Pilatte, and the cave is in the hill below the arches. Excavations have revealed  human shelters dating back to the  Lower Palaeolithic, 186 k - 127 k ya. More than 20,000 fossilized faunal bone fragments have been found. 

Cranial fragments of a skull are believed to be from a 9 yr old, at 200,000 years old, this could be Homo heidelbergensis or a proto Neanderthal human. 

Excavations took place in the 1970s. Close to the cave mouth, Andueulean stone tools were found. as well as fragments of animal bones and what are thought to be two charcoal hearths. 

From the road, a path leads up to the reception and the path is lined with information boards on the archaeology, geology etc, with prehistoric animal shapes made out of metal. 

At the reception I had to show proof of covid vaccines or a negative test. Then up to the entrance - amazingly there is no charge. A walkway into the chamber is lined with information displays and replicas of cave deposits. 

The cave itself is one chamber and visitors go along a platform listening to the audio visual display. The visuals are good, with items such as tools and bones illustrated in a square of light on the walls or floors. At the end of the platform there is a longer light display, showing a river or the sea in the cave, then "holograms" of  human inhabitants and animals etc with cave paintings of animals shown on the walls. It was all very effective and different from anything else I've seen. 

This wall is a replica of the wall that still exists on the hill top and the cave is below (see last photo) -

Apparently the cave opened to visitors in 2017, and surprisingly is free. Behind the reception is a very small room showing different skulls and a model of a cave man.

The hill where the cave is located, with the arched wall above -

See a detailed page on Grotte du Lazaret here and also a Wikipedia article.

Underground London - Eltham ice well

 I'm slowly visiting different ice wells and ice houses in the Greater London area. This one near Eltham I saw the sign as I was passing on the bus, so stopped for a visit. It is actually by Mottingham station, and is located at the edge of The Tarn, which is an area of woodland and parkland. 

The ice house was for Eltham Lodge which isn't that close, but the Tarn was then part of Eltham's Great Park. It is now part of The Royal Blackheath Golf Club.

The ice well is located north of the lake, where the word "The" is on the above map. It was built between 1750 and 1760. Eltham Lodge was built in 1664. The ice was cut from the lake and placed in the well, which was brick lined. The entrance faces north to give it shelter from the sun. The whole construction would have been thickly insulated with a conical straw thatch covering. And it is located in a shady and damp part of the wood.

A section has been removed to allow visitors to look into the well. 

The tarn is now a  bird sanctuary -