Twenty kilometres north of Mo i Rana, in the Rovassdalen valley, a hole in the marble mountainside opens into one of Norway's oldest tourist attractions. Grønligrotta has been known since before 1750 and was first mapped in 1914. It is the only show cave in Scandinavia with permanent electric lighting, meaning anyone can walk in without a headlamp or a guide rope.
The guided tour follows a 400-metre route past stalactites, stalagmites, and an underground river that carved these passages through marble over millions of years. The Rana area sits on some of Norway's thickest marble and limestone deposits, which is why roughly 200 caves have been found in the surrounding mountains. Grønligrotta is the gentle introduction.
For something rawer, Setergrotta in nearby Rovassdalen offers 3.4 kilometres of unmodified passages at a steady four degrees. You squeeze through a gap called Brevsprekken, the Mail Slot, to reach an underground pool with blind cave trout that have never seen daylight. The large marble halls have such good acoustics that Setergrotta is booked for concerts, with audiences sitting underground surrounded by raw stone.
The guided tour follows a 400-metre route past stalactites, stalagmites, and an underground river that carved these passages through marble over millions of years. The Rana area sits on some of Norway's thickest marble and limestone deposits, which is why roughly 200 caves have been found in the surrounding mountains. Grønligrotta is the gentle introduction.
For something rawer, Setergrotta in nearby Rovassdalen offers 3.4 kilometres of unmodified passages at a steady four degrees. You squeeze through a gap called Brevsprekken, the Mail Slot, to reach an underground pool with blind cave trout that have never seen daylight. The large marble halls have such good acoustics that Setergrotta is booked for concerts, with audiences sitting underground surrounded by raw stone.