Top 4 Caves レービハウでの

Mysterious Passages What to do with 1.4 million liters? That's how much beer was allowed to be brewed annually in Gera in the 17th century. As in other cities, the city's citizens – provided they owned a home – had the right to brew beer. Suitable rock cellars for storage did not exist in the surrounding area, so the resourceful citizens dug underground. Gera's beer storage facilities, known as Höhler (caves), were primarily built in the 16th and 17th centuries. The cellars, up to ten meters deep, spread out beneath Gera's old town like an underground labyrinth. More than 200 Höhler (caves) were built over the centuries, crisscrossing, stacked, and sometimes even abutting one another. Consistent temperatures of 12 to 13 degrees Celsius (54 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit) guaranteed refreshing beer enjoyment even in summer. From Coal Cellar to Tourist Attraction With the founding of the German Empire in 1871, the citizens' old private brewing rights expired, and the caves gradually fell into oblivion. Some were used as storage rooms, others filled in. In 1935, the caves were precisely surveyed and recorded for the first time. A completely new use was planned for the former beer cellars: in the event of war, they were to serve the people of Gera as underground shelters during air raids. In the 1980s, these extraordinary buildings slowly returned to public attention. Ten caves were connected by wall openings between 1986 and 1989 and have since been open to guided tours. The depiction of the various uses – as beer storage, later as coal cellars, waste dumps, or air-raid shelters – brings the history of the caves to life, and you can also discover the first natural stalactites in the centuries-old passages. https://www.gera.de/tourismus-freizeit-kultur/museen/historische-geraer-hoehler

You've probably moved. Today, the hyenas are in the boardrooms.😁

Beneath the old town of Gera there is a labyrinth of underground passages that lie up to ten metres below ground.

There was a hyena den here until 1876.

The Gera Caves are artificially created cavities (deep cellars) under the actual utility cellars of the houses in the old town of Gera, which were previously used to store beer.

Stolln 2 is also in the immediate vicinity.

There is also a beautiful spa park with lots of seating options.

There was a hyena den here until 1876.