Driny

Drina is the name of a cave in the Little Carpathians under the same mountain ( 434 m nm) near the village of Smolenice ( Okres Trnava). It is currently the only show cave in western Slovakia. She is a total of 680 m long, of which a large part is operated as a show cave.

The entrance was already known in the 19th century. In the closing days of the German war in 1866 at the entrance camped Prussian soldiers. But it was only in the 1920s, the discovery efforts went into full swing. 1929 succeeded Banič J. (son of Štefan Banič ) and I. Vajsábel descend deeper into the sinkhole fireplace and 1932 they reached the cave itself, at a depth of 36 m. In 1935, a 175 m long section with temporary, opened since 1943 permanent electrical lighting. After further discoveries of the show cave area was further enlarged in 1959. Since 1968, the cave is a national natural monument Slovakia.

The cave is formed in the Mesozoic Hornsteinkalk the lower Cretaceous. The transitions ( Chodba spolupracovníkov, Beňovského chodba, Chodba nádejí ) were carried rainwater which fell by disturbances in the ground, so they are rather narrow. Also hall rooms, such as Rhodesia Slovenskej are speleologickej spoločnosti small and emerged at the crossroads of these disorders. In the cave several flowstone are present, such as sinter curtains, flowstone waterfalls, pagoda-like stalagmites further, various stalactites and sinter ponds.

The relative humidity is 92 to 97 %, the air temperature ranges from 7.1 to 7.8 ° C in the rear part. Despite small size are still 11 species of bats known as the Lesser Horseshoe Bat ( Rhinolophus hipposideros ), the greater horseshoe bat ( Rhinolophus ferrumequinum ), the greater mouse- eared bat (Myotis myotis), the Barbastelle ( Barbastella barbastellus ) or the brown long- eared bat (Plecotus auritus ).