Top 13 Caves around Zittau

Great rock formation; With due attention, you can climb well and conquer the rocks and surroundings.

Looking up, we already see the Gratzer rocks, in this section the trees around us have died. We look back, far into the distance. We reach the rock formation, we are now standing between the freestanding sandstone rocks, with boulders in between, as if someone had dropped them here. If we don't deny ourselves a little climb on them, we feel like we are in an adventure land. The rock formation is permeated with small caves everywhere. A fantastic landscape, we walk between the rocks, through the autumnal forest surrounded by moss and ferns, the sandstone now sounds dull, almost hollow under our feet. https://youtu.be/N2GgTh6HEzQ

The White Stone marks a regional geological feature. Here, a rock formation consisting of a quartz vein emerges, striking for its atypical white color. This formation is also known as the Karasek Cave, named after the robber captain Johannes Karasek. This is said to have been the meeting place of the gang before and after several raids. While the robber captain actually existed, legend has it that his treasure, which has not yet been found, is hidden at this location. The story of the robber captain and information on the geology can be found in the Karasek Museum in Seifhennersdorf. Coming from Großschönau, it's worth taking a detour about 300 meters from the road and then continuing on to the Karasek Museum.

The White Stone is a rock formation up to six meters high in the Hofebusch forest near Spitzkunnersdorf in Upper Lusatia. Erosion also created the so-called Karasek Cave in this rock.

point for the hiking pin Oberlausitzer Bergweg

The cave has been known to locals for several centuries as the ice hole. Around 1870, the Zwickau mining association built the first access route to the cave and began marketing it for tourism. The descent to the cave floor, 6 meters below, was initially done via a carved tree trunk; later a ladder was installed. Around 1900 the entrance to the cave was barred, and for a fee you could get the key from a nearby mill. On busy weekends, a kiosk at the entrance sold refreshments. After 1945, the cave was freely accessible and was often damaged by ice formations breaking off and campfires. In 1966 the cave was declared a protected natural monument because of its unusual character, but it was not until 1988 that the cave entrance was closed again and the destruction stopped. Until 1995, access to the cave was permitted after approval by the administration of the Lusatian Mountains landscape protection area; since then, viewing has no longer been permitted due to the risk of collapse.

The water from the Hamerský potok (Hammer Stream) was used throughout his life to power the hammer and the mills. However, the demand increased constantly and therefore in 1938 the Naděje reservoir (Hammerbachtalsperre) was built about 1 km upstream, under whose dam wall in the valley the remains of the old mill ditches can still be seen today. The oldest, probably from the 19th century, begins with a wooden threshold in the stream about 400 m below the dam, from where it first led into an open ditch on the right side of the stream, but then continued carved into the rock and covered with phonolite slabs was. The ditch ends after 240 m at the northern edge of Hamr, where the sawmill owned by the entrepreneurs Mitter and Weiss used to be located. Immediately below this sawmill begins the second mill ditch, through which water was channeled into the Eisenhammer in the Middle Ages, and whose upper part was converted at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to drain the water from the Mittersche Brettmühle. This 130 m long mill ditch begins with a weir carved into the rock and its ditch was largely covered with phonolite slabs. But today it is buried in many places. Another 140 m long open mill ditch is located at the lower end of the village on the right side of the stream. Its water originally flowed in a wooden trough on the mill's water wheel and was transferred at the beginning of the 20th century into an 83 m long tunnel carved out of sandstone, at the end of which it flowed in a concrete trough to the turbine, which was the company's second sawmill Mitter and Weiss drove, was directed. Towards the end of the 50s of the 20th century, the sawmill buildings were demolished and today all that remains of them is a torso of the turbine chamber and overgrown remains of the foundation walls, behind which there is a smooth rock face with dug-in cellars and the tunnel of the old moat located.

Impressively beautiful, definitely take it with you