The Easter weekend (between 18th and 22nd April) and the long weekend between Thursday 25th April and Wednesday 1st May opens the high season to Castellana Caves (Ba), a karst complex among Puglia's main attractions, and one of the most visited paid tourist sites in Italy. It will be a busy period for operators and workers working in the caves located in the heart of Puglia.

Nearly 20 visit options, equally divided between the full itinerary to the White Grotto and the partial itinerary, equally divided between the morning and the afternoon. The 2018 organizational structure has been confirmed with the closed to traffic of the entire area of ​​Piazzale Anelli (both for the Easter and Easter Monday weekends and for the dates of April 25th and May 1st) and with the implementation of the customer service and security. The service is also active Purchase online Purchase Castellana Caves entrance tickets on the ticketone.it platform to ensure your entry to the karst complex at the desired time (the full price for the complete itinerary is 16 euros, and for the partial itinerary it is 13 euros).

“We are ready to welcome a flow of tourists that we expect to be large – commented the president Victor Casulli, at the head of the Board of Directors composed of the vice president Francesco Manghisi and the councilor Maria Lacasella As already happened last year, the aim is to offer maximum comfort to the many visitors who choose the Castellana caves and the green area of ​​our pine forest to spend their holidays and moments of relaxation, but also to optimise visitor flows to make the experience in our underground the best possible.".

HELL IN THE CAVE AT THE CASTELLANA CAVES: NEW PERFORMANCES ON APRIL 24TH AND 30TH

To enrich the program of the next Easter holidays and not only, there will also be a double performance of Hell in the Cave – verses dancing in the dark air, the largest underground air show in the world, a multimedia representation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the only permanent show in Puglia.

Inspired by Dante's circles of the Divine Comedy, Hell in the Cave is hell seen from the center of the earth, 70 meters underground, among karst concretions shaped by nature over 90 million years. An evocative setting serves as both the backdrop and the protagonist of the show, featuring damned souls and demons, but also celestial, pure-white figures led by the enchanting Beatrice. The cast of dancers and actors makes the Hell in the Cave experience unique, with its record-breaking numbers consistently breaking.

Two shows are scheduled: Wednesday, April 24th and Tuesday, April 30th. Tickets for Hell in the Cave are on sale online at ticketone.it. For information and reservations, call +39 339 1176722. A combination of the Castellana Caves ticket (full tour including the White Grotto) and the Hell in the Cave ticket is also available: the total cost will be €28 instead of €36.

For Dante's Inferno at a depth of 70 meters, two performances are also scheduled for the month of May, on Friday the 10th and Friday the 31st. The show always starts at 21 pm.

VISITING HOURS FOR THE CASTELLANA CAVES VALID IN APRIL AND MAY

Full visit in Italian: 9.00 am – 10.00 am – 11.00 am – 12.00 pm – 15.00 pm – 16.00 pm – 17.00 pm

Full tour in English, German, and French: 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

Partial visit in Italian: 10.30 am – 11.30 am – 13.00 pm – 14.30 pm – 15.30 pm – 18.00 pm

Partial tour in English and German: 9:30 am – 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – 6:00 pm

The reservation service is reserved only for groups of more than 20 people.

Individuals simply need to show up at the ticket office at least 30 minutes before their chosen tour.

For the period between March and November only, it is possible to pre-purchase tickets through the TicketOne circuit up to 24 hours before the chosen visit.

For any other needs, write to segreteria@grottedicastellana.it or call 0804998221

17 visitors to the Castellana Caves in the first three months of 2019

There were 17040 visitors to the Castellana Caves (Ba) in the first three months of 2019, with a notable peak in users recorded in March (11996 tourists, one of the best figures ever for the third month of the year). “March 2019 saw, as regards the flow of tourists, a confirmation of the trend of recent years – commented the president Victor Casulli with the increase in foreign tourism and a slight decline in school tourism, the latter having been declining for several years now. Precisely in relation to these findings, in recent months we have initiated and planned contacts with some of the most important local organizations, launching initiatives that we will shortly implement. As we have already done with the management of the Zoosafari, for example, but also within the Italian Tourist Caves Association, we continue to believe that networking is the right path to achieving the important objectives set, to increase tourist flows and to improve the offering and services to visitors..

93,2% OF TOURISTS SATISFIED IN 2018: CASTELLANA CAVES TOP OF THE CULTURAL PLACES RANKING

What do the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Villa d'Este in Rome and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples have in common in 2018 for the museums category, the Venaria Reale in Turin, the Colosseum and Juliet's House in Verona for the attractions category, the Valentino Park in Turin, the Castellana Caves (Ba) and the Baths of Caracalla in Rome among parks: they all top the list of the most reviewed and appreciated Italian cultural sites, compiled by Travel Appeal, a study that captures the digital offerings and user satisfaction over the past year for all the museums, attractions, libraries, parks, and archives listed by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, detected through an analysis of the most popular review sites in Italy.

Thousands of structures (6.610 museums, attractions, parks, archives and libraries) and almost 700 thousand reviews were analyzed: There were 8.327 reviews for the caves of Castellana with 93,2% positive feelings, above the average satisfaction recorded for both Italian tourists (92%) and foreign tourists (88%) throughout Italy and in the Puglia region.