France Show cave
La Verna cave
9 °C inside, all year.
Pierre Tribhou · CC BY-SA 4.0
The descent
The entrance, at 1,077 m.
The real relief above La Verna 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.
1,077m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
9°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
645m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
9 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 9 °C here, in January and in August. In August the afternoon reaches 23 °C at the entrance, 14 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket.
- 5°-2°Jan
- 5°-3°Feb
- 9°0°Mar
- 12°2°Apr
- 16°6°May
- 20°10°Jun
- 23°11°Jul
- 23°11°Aug
- 20°8°Sep
- 15°6°Oct
- 9°1°Nov
- 6°-1°Dec
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.
Show cave in France
La Verna cave is a show cave in France. The entrance is at 1,077 m. It has stalactites and stalagmites. It is open to visitors.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsHours in OpenStreetMap: 10:00-12:30, 14:00-18:30 · ticket requiredOfficial site↗
- Arettenearest town · 14 km in a straight line
- Parking 2,000 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Viewpointsnearest viewpoint · 2.2 km from the entrance
- Pau Pyrénées Airport (PUF)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 54 km in a straight lineCar hire at LDE airport (Tarbes/Lourdes/Pyrénées)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
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.
N
1.5 km
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.
- 13other cave entrances within 3 kmEntrée de la grotte de la Verna, Karrikalako leizea, Axeri Xilua and 10 more
- 7springs within 2 kmAbreuvoir du Coup, Abreuvoir d'Escuret de Haut, Fontaine d'Escuret de Bas and 4 more
- 1viewpoints within 3 km
- 7marked hiking routes within 3 kmÉtape 07, Variante 7.1, Variante 7.2 and 4 more
- 5car parks within 2 km
- 8information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 1bus stops within 2 km
- 3campsites within 8 kmAire Arette - La pierre Saint Martin, Albergue Txamantxoia, Camping Ibarra
- 101hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmElichalt, Accoce, Ainerak and 98 more
- 2restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 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
- Arette14 km in a straight line
- Urzainqui21 km in a straight line
- Garde24 km in a straight line
- Ansó25 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around La Verna 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.
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 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 23 | 20 | 15 | 9 | 6 |
| Afternoon | 5 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 23 | 20 | 15 | 9 | 6 |
| Night | -2 | -3 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 1 | -1 |
| Rain (mm) | 93 | 74 | 78 | 85 | 87 | 67 | 47 | 48 | 56 | 75 | 105 | 81 |
| Rainy days | 13 | 11 | 12 | 15 | 14 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 13 |
| Sun hours/day | 3.0 | 4.4 | 5.7 | 6.2 | 6.8 | 7.9 | 8.2 | 7.7 | 7.1 | 5.1 | 3.5 | 3.1 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 11 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 9 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 5 | 5 | -2 | 93 | 3.0 |
| Feb | 5 | 5 | -3 | 74 | 4.4 |
| Mar | 9 | 9 | 0 | 78 | 5.7 |
| Apr | 12 | 12 | 2 | 85 | 6.2 |
| May | 16 | 16 | 6 | 87 | 6.8 |
| Jun | 20 | 20 | 10 | 67 | 7.9 |
| Jul | 23 | 23 | 11 | 47 | 8.2 |
| Aug | 23 | 23 | 11 | 48 | 7.7 |
| Sep | 20 | 20 | 8 | 56 | 7.1 |
| Oct | 15 | 15 | 6 | 75 | 5.1 |
| Nov | 9 | 9 | 1 | 105 | 3.5 |
| Dec | 6 | 6 | -1 | 81 | 3.1 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (1,077 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.

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 | 50% | 44% | 151% | 129% | 127% | 140% | 46% | 111% | 159% | 269% | 30% | 275% |
| 2021 | 106% | 65% | 24% | 46% | 69% | 175% | 69% | 36% | 195% | 97% | 105% | 196% |
| 2022 | 67% | 41% | 101% | 89% | 32% | 98% | 37% | 108% | 156% | 92% | 146% | 95% |
| 2023 | 133% | 55% | 60% | 77% | 71% | 224% | 85% | 117% | 176% | 119% | 160% | 119% |
| 2024 | 65% | 175% | 233% | 65% | 133% | 128% | 60% | 189% | 310% | 192% | 65% | 94% |
| 2025 | 148% | 47% | 136% | 110% | 106% | 130% | 50% | 114% | 86% | 61% | 117% | 68% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q21013094) · 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
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.



