Grotta di Nettuno Neptune's Grotto
Country Country A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously... :	Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Region:	Sardinia Sardinia Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
Province:	Sassari Province of Sassari The Province of Sassari is a province in the autonomous island region of Sardinia in Italy. Its capital is the city of Sassari.-Geography:It has an area of 4,282 km², and a total population of 322,326 . There are 66 municipalities in the province, the largest of which are Sassari The...
Municipality:	Alghero Alghero Alghero , is a town of about 44,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea.-History:The area of today's Alghero has been settled since pre-historic times...
Locality:	Capo Caccia
Coordinates Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on the Earth to be specified by a set of numbers. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represent vertical position, and two or three of the numbers represent horizontal position... :	40°33′39"N 8°09′50"E
Time zone Time zone A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times... :	CET Central European Time Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00... , UTC+1 UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as .This time is used in:*Central European Time*West Africa Time*Western European Summer Time**British Summer Time**Irish Standard Time...
Type:	Sea cave
Length Length In geometric measurements, length most commonly refers to the longest dimension of an object.In certain contexts, the term "length" is reserved for a certain dimension of an object along which the length is measured. For example it is possible to cut a length of a wire which is shorter than wire... :	? m
Elevation Elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface .... :	5 amsl Above mean sea level The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...
Depth:	? m
Website Website A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...	Grotta di Nettuno

Neptune's Grotto is a stalactite

Stalactite

A stalactite , "to drip", and meaning "that which drips") is a type of speleothem that hangs from the ceiling of limestone caves. It is a type of dripstone...

 cave

Cave

A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...

 near the town of Alghero

Alghero

Alghero , is a town of about 44,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea.-History:The area of today's Alghero has been settled since pre-historic times...

 on the island of Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The cave was discovered by local fishermen in the 18th century and has since developed into a popular tourist attraction. The grotto gets its name from the Roman god

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

 of the sea, Neptune

Neptune (mythology)

Neptune was the god of water and the sea in Roman mythology and religion. He is analogous with, but not identical to, the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, each of them presiding over one of the three realms of the universe,...

.

Overview

The entrance to the grotto lies only around a meter above the sea level at the foot of the 110-meter-high Capo Caccia cliffs and the cave can therefore only be visited when the waters below are calm. A stairway cut into the cliff in 1954, the 654-step escala del cabirol (goat's steps), leads from a car park at the top of the cliff down to the entrance. The grotto is also accessible via a short boat trip from the port of Alghero; these trips are arranged hourly during the summer, but less frequently during spring and autumn. Two other grottoes lie nearby, the "Green grotto", which is not open to tourists, and the Grotta di Ricami, which is only accessible from the sea.
Under water all around there are many big under water marine caves, paradise for the scuba-diving fans, the bigger and the most famous is the Nereo Cave

Nereo Cave

The Nereo Cave is a huge underwater sea-cave situated on the north-west of Sardinia in the Coral riviera of Alghero, Italy. The name was given by the discovers in honour of the mythological figure Nereus, who is often billed as the Old Man of the Sea, father of the Nereids...

, visited each year by thousand of scuba divers

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

.

The combined length of the cave system is estimated to be around 4 kilometers, but only a few hundred meters are accessible to the public. Inside are passages of lit stalactite and stalagmite formations, and a 120-meter-long saltwater lake, which is at sea level. The cave was once a habitat for the Mediterranean Monk Seal

Mediterranean Monk Seal

The Mediterranean monk seal is a pinniped belonging to the Phocidae family. At some 450-510 remaining individuals, it is believed to be the world's second-rarest pinniped , and one of the most endangered mammals in the world.It is present in parts of the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic...

, which has become extinct in the area.

Tourism

Tourists visiting Neptune's Grotto are given guided tours and led single-file through a lit pathway, with tour guides providing information about the cave in Italian and English. The grotto is widely visited, and during the peak tourist season in August, can contain around 200 people at a time.

Neptune's Grotto was the set of the movie Island of Mutations, filmed in the summer of 1978. For approximately two months the Grotto was transformed into a gigantic set. The science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 movie starred Barbara Bach

Barbara Bach

Barbara Bach is an American actress and model known as the Bond girl from the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me . She is married to former Beatle Ringo Starr.-Early life:...

, and was under the direction of Sergio Martino

Sergio Martino

Sergio Martino is an Italian film director and producer, notable for his contributions to the giallo genre.Martino is the brother of producer Luciano Martino. They collaborated frequently in their respective professions...

.

External links

• Article about the Neptune Cave