I will start with the positives. This cave is exceptionally beautiful and is an outstanding natural wonder. The interior features many chambers with unique formations including pillars, underground pools, and crystals. This cave is definitely the most beautiful "show cave" in the area. Even with the negative points of my review, if seeing a beautiful cave is important to you, it is worth visiting once.
Now on to the negatives. The tour starts with a "wine tasting" experience, where you are just pressured to buy their branded wine; very much tourist trap vibes and takes up almost 15 minutes of the 1 hour tour. The staff in the lobby were also very unfriendly, they do not offer audio guides or information sheets for foreign tourists unless you specifically ask.
The main issue is that tour guides in this cave are extremely loud, many people in our tour covered there ears due to the noise, which is made worse by the tannoy system and cave acoustics. Aside from the shouting manner of delivery, the guide also bangs on the cave walls, shouts at guests, screams (to get the guests attention?), and makes loud animals noises. Unsure what the intention is but this really ruins the experience as you are constantly on edge due to the screaming. If you have small children, autism, or any anxiety, I recommend giving this attraction a miss. As an adult with autism, I expected a heritage site such as this to be a good visit, but would not recommend to others on the spectrum due to the lack of detailed information given and the extremely loud noises, worse than a concert.
Included in the €10 entry fee is a free audio guide, as the tour guide only speaks French. Due to the constant overwhelming noise of the tour guide, I was unable to hear the audio guide at all. The guide is also "auto play" and should detect your location and play the relevant audio clip; this worked about 50% of the time. However, due to no option to manually choose when or what audio track plays, you cannot play a track if the audio guide doesn't randomly decide to play it. You also cannot replay tracks, which is annoying as I wanted to listen once the tour guide stopped speaking. In the final chamber of the cave is a light/ music show but unfortunately the audio guide played at the same time, so I was unable to listen properly to either.
The cave itself is very beautiful but very poorly preserved. Almost all of the crystals, stalactites, and some of the pillars have been broken due to tourists snapping pieces off. Compared to other caves in the area, the preservation is poor, and no effort is made to stop tourists touching or breaking pieces of the cave.
There is free parking on site and a free toilet, as well as a small cafe. All of these facilities are clean and well-maintained, and the main building is very...
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