Tiefenhöhle

In the belly of the Swabian Alb

The Tiefenhöhle is the deepest accessible show cave in Germany. It shows the karstification and cave levels of the Alb impressively. It is 80 metres deep, and visitors can descend to a depth of 55 metres into the belly of the Alb via many stairways. The cave museum is located in the entrance building. There you can learn everything about the formation of the cave and the karst landscape of the Swabian Alb.

Special feature: Discovery was a chance find

There is no "real" sand on the plateau of the Swabian Alb. In former times, inhabitants earned some money by mining dolomite sand in pits. This is produced when the rock dolomite weathers. One day in 1892, Johann Mack was digging for this material near Laichingen and was very successful. The next morning he wanted to fill the piled up sand into sacks, but the sand had disappeared. At first he thought it was stolen, but then he found out that the sand had disappeared through a small hole in the ground. When he examined the hole, it very quickly became clear that there must be a large cavity down there: the Laichinger Tiefenhöhe had been discovered.