Top 20 Caves 알트뮐탈

The climb is not particularly demanding and easy to manage. From the car park at the Roman Bridge, you can get here in just under 15 minutes.

The Kindinger Klause served as a shelter for people for thousands of years. Finds prove that the hermitage was already used in the Paleolithic period.

The beginnings of the pilgrimage to the Mariahilfberg date back to the late 17th century. At that time there was a small burial chapel modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and a Way of the Cross. A wooden Lady Chapel was built in 1687 very close to the Calvary. Her most valuable jewelry was a copy of a famous painting of the Virgin Mary by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Today's pilgrimage church was built between 1718 and 1727 as one of five baroque Marian shrines in western Upper Palatinate. The richly decorated baroque high altar by Johann Ulrich Wiest contains the famous miraculous image of the Virgin and Child, which is deeply revered to this day.

It's not far from Prunn Castle to get to the grotto. There is climbing in the grotto. If you walk a little further you will come to a very nice viewpoint. But take good care of the children.

The settlement history of the Altmühl valley began at the beginning of the last ice age, in the so-called Würm ice age, about 80,000 years ago. On the other hand, there are no archaeological finds from the oldest phase of the Paleolithic, i. H. from the Günz, Mindel or early Rißeiszeit 500,000 - 120,000 years ago, but this is more likely due to the change in river systems. The Danube flowed through the Lower Altmühltal until about 200,000 years ago. Therefore, no older finds could be deposited in caves or rock overhangs. In the Würm Ice Age, around 100,000 - 10,000 years ago, there are first indications of people who stayed in the caves or under rock protection roofs, so-called rock shelters, in the Lower Altmühl Valley. At that time the climate here is similar to that of the tundra today. The ice-free Altmühltal was a favorable hunting ground, where mammoths, rhinos, reindeer, and later also horses, bison and primal lived. The Klausen Caves are a system of several caves nested one on top of the other: Lower Klause, Klausen Niche, Middle and Upper Klause. Except for the Lower Hermitage, tools and equipment from the Old, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods were found in the other caves. From the Klausen niche comes z. B. a deciduous incisor of a Neanderthal. In the middle hermitage, archaeologists from the Magdalenian layer were able to salvage a single-row harpoon, bone spikes and a perforated staff made of reindeer antlers, which is decorated with fantasy creatures. A limestone slab with incised lines of a wild horse document the first art products. In 1913, archaeologists found the skeleton of a Homo sapiens. The approximately 30-year-old man died about 18,000 years ago. His dead body was wrapped in a mighty red chalk pack. Fragments of mammoth tusks lay in the area of the skull. https://www.herzstueck.bayern/ attraction/07-station-klausenhoehlen-e617ad20c7

Beautiful grotto, also for climbing

a cave with many stairs leading deep down

The Catholic pilgrimage church “Maria Hilf” is located on the Mariahilfberg high above Neumarkt. The climb over the Stations of the Cross is rewarded with a beautiful view.