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Aven Grotte de Marzal
The Aven Marzal is a cave-chasm in Saint-Remèze, in the Ardèche. It was first explored in 1892 by the speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel, accompanied by his foreman Louis Armand. Martel described it as one of the most admirable he knew, for the variety and colour of its concretions.
The chasm owes its name to a gamekeeper called Marzal: according to local history, his body and that of his dog were thrown in in 1812 by a poacher. The entrance was later blocked by mistake and its location forgotten, until the speleologist Pierre Ageron found it again on 27 March 1949, after fifteen years of searching, and developed it for visitors. Some parts of the cavity, at about 125 metres' depth, are known for their sparkling concretions, notably the Hall of Diamonds.
The site combines three visits in one. The cave is the heart of it. The Museum of the Underground World gathers the authentic equipment of great names in speleology (Martel, de Lavaur, de Joly, Casteret, Ageron). Finally, the prehistoric zoo, opened in 1983, offers life-size reproductions of prehistoric animals along an 800-metre shaded path.
