Grotta Remeron

Useful Information

Location:	Colonia Rossi in via al Piano, 3, 21020 Barasso (VA). (45.8598088, 8.7462772)
Open:	MAY to JUN Sun. AUG Sat, Sun. SEP to OCT Sun. [2023]
Fee:	Adults EUR 7, Children (6-13) EUR 5, Children (0-5) free, Locals EUR 5. [2023]
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System helmet with headlamp provided.
Dimension:	L=2,300 m, VR=252 m, A=750 m asl, T=8 °C, H=96 %.
Guided tours:	L=230 m, VR=48 m, D=3 h.
Photography:	allowed during stops
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:	Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli (2004): Insoliti viaggi: l'appassionante diario di un precursore, Touring Editore, 2004.
Address:	Associazione invenire, Via E. Sacconaghi, 15, 21025 Comerio (VA), Tel: +39-0332-1543101.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1900	cave explored by an expedition led by Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli.
1914	cave opened to the public.

Description

The Grotta Remeron (Remeron Cave) is located in the Varese karst area. It is located on the southern slope of the Campo dei Fiori massif, with a panoramic view towards Lake Varese. The entrance is at a height of 750 m asl on the forested slopes above the Lago di Vares. While the lake is located at 240 m asl, the last houses of the surrounding villages and at about 500 m asl. From here its necessary to hike to the cave entrance, a distance of 1.3 km and an elevation gain of 250 m make this a 50 minutes hike. And that's unchanged since the cave was officially opened as a show cave in 1914, more than a century ago. All good reasons why this cave never became a popular tourist destination, it's actually a sort of insider tip.

The official tours take place on Sundays, the tour actually starts in the village Barasso. Meeting point is the Colonia Rossi in via al Piano 3, which is located uphill at the end of the road. Participants meet the guide and then the 50 minutes hike uphill to the cave entrance starts. At the cave, after a short break and handing out the helmets, the underground tour starts. Finally, the group walks back downhill to the starting point. In total, it's a 3 h tour, and it offers a spectacular view from the southern slope of the Campo dei Fiori massif towards Lake Varese. It requires walking equipment, like good walking shoes, protection against sun and rain, a fleece for the cave, and probably a snack and a bottle of water. And some physical fitness and surefootedness. In case of bad weather, the tour might be cancelled for safety reasons.

The cave is an alpine cave, mostly spacious, with a total length of more than 2 km quite large, but also difficult to explore due to a vertical range of 250 m, in other words numerous shafts and climbs. The exploration started rather late, in 1900 it was explored for the first time by an expedition led by Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli. Other participants were Luigi Orrigoni, Milanese entrepreneur, founder of the first Italian zinc mill and owner of a villa in Barasso, and two local priests, Don Luigi Tadini, from Comerio and Don Giacomo Pensotti, from Barasso. They were not very successful, actually they had to return at the first underground lake because of a lack of appropriate equipment. But Bertarelli published an article, which was entitled Una gita sotterra (An underground Trip), telling about this exploration. It appeared in the «Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano» in October 1900, a tourist club magazine which was widely read. And his style was brilliant, alternating moments of suspense with descriptions of a purely manual nature, like equipment or the itinerary. It created the impression that the reader, members of the Touring Club, were able to do such an expedition if they followed the given description.

"Halfway up the mountain, three quarters of an hour above Comerio, between Varese and Gavirate, at a height of approximately 685 metres, a meadow opens up in the middle, with a very innocent appearance, a small hole, 50 cm wide in one direction and a meter and a half in the other. This is the so-called Remeron Cave, which all the farmers know, and where no one has penetrated more than a few metres, because it is not a comfortable affair. The usual legends of snakes, and other animals and more or less fantastic facts, did not prevent Don Luigi Tadini from Comerio, Don Giacomo Pensotti from Barasso, my indivisible hiking companion Gigi Orrigoni and me, from separately carrying out preliminary reconnaissance, which convinced us that a serious attempt could be very interesting. We therefore went all together, to attack the unknown, one morning last August. We carried with us a heavy material, against which our unaccustomed shoulders protested: in addition to the provisions from the mouth, which, after all, are the source of courage, there were about two hundred meters of different ropes, from the thin ones which provide moral confidence and little material help on easy descents, to the robust ones which you can abandon your body to if necessary with the certainty that it does not detach from the soul. There was also the equipment of a stonemason, with irons to be inserted, if necessary, to attach the ropes, and finally almost a hundred meters of ladders, partly Don Giacomo's, partly mine"
Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli

Their report created attention for the Remeron cave, and soon other expeditions followed. And only 14 years later the entrance section was equipped with a tourist path, with stairs and ladder, and the cave opened as a show cave. The trail was continually developed between 1914 and 1935. The entrance, originally only half a meter high, which required some crawling, was extended to a passage of 1.5 m wide and 2 m high. Stone stairs and metal stairs were built to a depth of 48 m. The first chamber is quite creatively named First Chamber, from here the trail follows a passage named Via del Fondo. Here the lowest point of the tour is reached. Back uphill the trail reaches the (Great Hall). This chamber is the location where the Holy Mass is celebrated every year.