En route from Banska Stiavnica to Kosice, I passed the Slovak Karst area, half of this transboundary WHS near the border with Hungary. A number of caves open to visitors are located here, all well signposted off the main road. Some are still closed at this time of year (notably the Dobsinska Ice Cave). I decided to visit the Gombasecka cave, which is applauded in the Bradt guidebook as one of the most visually impressive.

I arrived at an almost empty parking area. The ticket booth seemed closed too, but when I appeared the window was opened. The entrance fee is 140SK (about 3 EUR) and you only get in with a guided tour. I had to wait an hour for that (Bradt didn't get the opening hours right).

At 1 pm it suddenly got very busy near the entrance. Tens of visitors arrived, mostly regional according to their car plates (Slovak, Czech, Polish, Hungarian). There were so many they even had to split the group into two 'smaller' groups of about 30.

The accessible part of this cave isn't very big, the whole tour takes about 40 minutes. Its key feature is the soda straws, very thin and hollow dripstones. It's certainly nice, but not different from other dripstone caves. I had to look hard for an accompanying picture where it doesn't look like it has been taken at Carlsbad Caverns. But a visit to one of these caves certainly is a nice enough break in the long drive from West to East Slovakia.