Portugal Cave with prehistoric art

Escoural Cave

15 °C inside, all year.

The descent

The entrance, at 362 m.

The real relief above Escoural Cave, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.

The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.

362m

Entrance altitude

from the 30 m relief model

15°C

Inside, all year

the yearly average outside, at the entrance

63m

Rock above

the highest point within 1.5 km

Inside and outside

15 °C inside, all year.

Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 15 °C here, in January and in August. In August the afternoon reaches 33 °C at the entrance, 18 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket. The best months to escape the heat are from June to September.

outside, at the entrance (362 m)inside

13°3°Jan
14°3°Feb
17°5°Mar
20°7°Apr
24°10°May
29°13°Jun
33°14°Jul
33°15°Aug
29°14°Sep
23°11°Oct
16°6°Nov
13°3°Dec

Inside: 15 °C all yearEscape the heat: Jun–SepWettest: Mar, Oct–Jan

Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.

Geographical object

Escoural Cave is a cave with prehistoric art in Portugal. The entrance is at 362 m. It is closed to the public to protect it.

Getting there.

No public accessProtected for science or for its art. Look for a replica or a visitor centre nearby.
Montemor-o-Novonearest town · 13 km in a straight line
Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 91 km in a straight lineCar hire at LIS airport (Lisbon)Discover Cars · sponsored link

Plan the visit

Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.

Car hire at LIS airport (Lisbon)Discover CarsSee prices

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

From above.

The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.

The ground above Escoural Cave (Sentinel-2)

N 1.5 km

Cave entrancesParkingInformationPicnic

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around the entrance.

1other cave entrances within 3 kmGruta do Escoural
1car parks within 2 km
3information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
1hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmSerrinha
9restaurants and cafés within 3 km

springs within 2 km
sinkholes within 3 km
caving clubs and spots within 15 km
viewpoints within 3 km
marked hiking routes within 3 km
climbing crags within 3 km
named waterfalls within 4 km
bus stops within 2 km
campsites within 8 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Towns nearby

Montemor-o-Novo13 km in a straight line
Évora20 km in a straight line
Arraiolos24 km in a straight line

In our other atlases

What else is around Escoural Cave.

The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.

Peakyas3 mountains within 10 km

Fontainhas · 7.9 kmCabeço da Mina · 8.7 kmAlto do Castelinho da Serra · 9.0 km

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.

Month by month

The weather outside, at the entrance.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Afternoon	13	14	17	20	24	29	33	33	29	23	16	13
Afternoon	13	14	17	20	24	29	33	33	29	23	16	13
Night	3	3	5	7	10	13	14	15	14	11	6	3
Rain (mm)	59	50	62	56	35	13	3	5	28	80	83	60
Rainy days	9	8	8	9	7	2	1	1	5	9	10	10
Sun hours/day	5.0	6.3	7.2	8.6	10.3	11.7	12.6	11.7	9.4	6.9	5.5	4.9

	Afternoon	Afternoon	Night	Rain (mm)	Sun hours/day
Jan	13	13	3	59	5.0
Feb	14	14	3	50	6.3
Mar	17	17	5	62	7.2
Apr	20	20	7	56	8.6
May	24	24	10	35	10.3
Jun	29	29	13	13	11.7
Jul	33	33	14	3	12.6
Aug	33	33	15	5	11.7
Sep	29	29	14	28	9.4
Oct	23	23	11	80	6.9
Nov	16	16	6	83	5.5
Dec	13	13	3	60	4.9

Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (362 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.

Photographs

Inside and around.

Entrada da Gruta do Escoural - Portugal (237587014) — Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0

Livros e postais gruta do Escoural (3 de 4) — JMiguelSoares · CC BY-SA 3.0

Livros e postais gruta do Escoural (4 de 4) — JMiguelSoares · CC BY-SA 3.0

Recent years

Wet years, dry years.

Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2020	83%	7%	126%	224%	220%	30%	—	11%	103%	206%	147%	109%
2021	78%	199%	28%	124%	47%	107%	—	53%	189%	70%	20%	110%
2022	9%	89%	189%	105%	9%	135%	—	11%	179%	70%	60%	299%
2023	57%	17%	33%	12%	90%	140%	—	0%	168%	152%	75%	45%
2024	165%	104%	185%	53%	12%	133%	—	11%	36%	138%	65%	14%
2025	208%	155%	259%	174%	78%	14%	—	0%	15%	25%	103%	199%

130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month

Caves nearby.

Escoural Cave

Portugal

—Depth
—Galleries
362 mEntrance altitude
15 °CInside, all year

Cave of Aroeira

Portugal · 115 km

—Depth
—Galleries
146 mEntrance altitude
15 °CInside, all year

See the guide

Cave of Salemas

Portugal · 100 km

—Depth
—Galleries
240 mEntrance altitude
15 °CInside, all year

See the guide

Grutas de Mira de Aire

Portugal · 121 km

—Depth
—Galleries
300 mEntrance altitude
14 °CInside, all year

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name, type, published depth and length, visitors	Wikidata (Q1127492) · CC0
The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model	Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Climate	NASA POWER, 1991–2020
Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around	© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
Images	EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby	Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

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