Greece Show cave
Melissani Cave
37 m deep, 3.5 km of galleries.
Matt Sims · CC BY 2.0
The descent
37 metres down, to scale.
The real relief above Melissani Cave, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
a two-storey house (9 m) would fit upside down 4.1 times.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey.
37m
Depth
published (Wikidata)
3.5km
Galleries
surveyed length (Wikidata)
26m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
19°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
329m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
19 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 19 °C here, in January and in August. In August the afternoon reaches 29 °C at the entrance, 10 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket. The best months to escape the heat are from July to August.
- 14°11°Jan
- 14°11°Feb
- 15°12°Mar
- 18°14°Apr
- 21°18°May
- 25°22°Jun
- 28°24°Jul
- 29°25°Aug
- 26°23°Sep
- 22°20°Oct
- 19°16°Nov
- 15°13°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.
Cave and cenote in Kefalonia, Greece
Melissani Cave is a show cave in Greece. It goes down 37 m below the entrance and has 3.5 km of surveyed galleries. The entrance is at 26 m. It has an underground lake and stalactites and stalagmites. It is open to visitors.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsHours in OpenStreetMap: 09:00-17:00
- Sáminearest town · 2.1 km in a straight line
- Parking 100 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Vlachatanearest viewpoint · 1.8 km from the entrance
- Kefallinia Airport (EFL)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 19 km in a straight lineCar hire at EFL airport (Kefallinia Island)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.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 kmΛιμνοσπήλαιο Μελισσάνης
- 1springs within 2 km
- 1viewpoints within 3 kmVlachata
- 4car parks within 2 km
- 4information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 1campsites within 8 kmCamping Karavomilos Beach
- 23hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmHotel Olive Bay, hotel moustakis, Villa Annika and 20 more
- 17restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- bus stops within 2 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
- Sámi2.1 km in a straight line
- Farakláta11 km in a straight line
- Itháki14 km in a straight line
- Argostólion14 km in a straight line
- Póros17 km in a straight line
- Lixoúri17 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around Melissani 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.
Peakyas7 mountains within 10 kmFigures 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 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 28 | 29 | 26 | 22 | 19 | 15 |
| Afternoon | 14 | 14 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 28 | 29 | 26 | 22 | 19 | 15 |
| Night | 11 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 24 | 25 | 23 | 20 | 16 | 13 |
| Rain (mm) | 119 | 93 | 76 | 45 | 29 | 19 | 12 | 19 | 77 | 103 | 129 | 148 |
| Rainy days | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sun hours/day | 3.9 | 4.9 | 6.7 | 8.4 | 10.4 | 12.0 | 12.5 | 11.3 | 8.6 | 6.7 | 4.7 | 3.6 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 14 | 14 | 11 | 119 | 3.9 |
| Feb | 14 | 14 | 11 | 93 | 4.9 |
| Mar | 15 | 15 | 12 | 76 | 6.7 |
| Apr | 18 | 18 | 14 | 45 | 8.4 |
| May | 21 | 21 | 18 | 29 | 10.4 |
| Jun | 25 | 25 | 22 | 19 | 12.0 |
| Jul | 28 | 28 | 24 | 12 | 12.5 |
| Aug | 29 | 29 | 25 | 19 | 11.3 |
| Sep | 26 | 26 | 23 | 77 | 8.6 |
| Oct | 22 | 22 | 20 | 103 | 6.7 |
| Nov | 19 | 19 | 16 | 129 | 4.7 |
| Dec | 15 | 15 | 13 | 148 | 3.6 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (26 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Caves nearby.
Melissani Cave
Greece
- 37 mDepth
- 3.5 kmGalleries
- 26 mEntrance altitude
- 19 °CInside, all year
Cave of the Lakes
Greece · 137 km
- —Depth
- 2.0 kmGalleries
- 827 mEntrance altitude
- 13 °CInside, all year
Corycian Cave
Greece · 168 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 1,300 mEntrance altitude
- 10 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q1573013) · 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?
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