October the 18th, 2026 – There’s a mysterious Krk cave that carries strange stories of smugglers, treasure and even cave bears…
The underground world deep beneath Croatia is home to an incredibly rich and fascinating world, and the Cerovačke and Baraćeve caves, the Blue Cave on Biševo and Manita peć in Paklenica National Park are just some of the caves you should visit at least once in a lifetime. Putni kofer writes that the island of Krk also has its own magical cave. It’s called Biserujka and is located not far from Slivanjska Bay and near the small village of Rudine in the north-eastern part of the island. This underground beauty is rich in impressive stalactites, stalagmites and speleothem columns, and an interesting story of pirate treasure is also associated with it.
THE CAVE TAKES ON BROWN, GREY AND REDDISH COLOURS BECAUSE OF MINERALS
It is also known as Vitezić Cave or Slivanjska Jama, and the name Biserujka, at least according to legend, is owed to the treasure that was once hidden in it. It supposedly belonged to local pirates, and after it was found it was moved to an unknown place. Where did it end up? According to tradition, only “Ive Gospodin” knows that, whose house stands at the entrance to the village of Rudine. Biserujka is not a huge cave. It is only 110 metres long, and from the entrance to the bottom its depth is 13 metres. It stretches relatively shallowly beneath the surface, yet it abounds in diverse cave decorations. They can be brown, grey and reddish, and their colour is given by various minerals, especially iron and manganese oxides.
The overburden of Biserujka is thin and nowhere exceeds six to eight metres. During rainy periods water penetrates into its interior: it passes through the limestone and dissolves calcium compounds that gradually deposit in the cave and form speleothems. How slow the entire process is is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that for a layer only one millimetre thick it takes from 10 to 30 years. Visiting the cave is very simple and requires no speleological experience or special equipment. From a stone cottage you descend by stairs into a small hall called the Balcony, from which you pass through the Window, the narrowest part of the arranged path. The path then leads into the Great Hall richly covered with speleothems, the Hall with Bridges and the Cypress Hall, in which the speleothem columns resemble a petrified cypress forest. The final part is so close to the surface that it contains soil and plant roots.
graffiti through the ages can still be seen within the cave
In the deeper part of Biserujka the temperature of the ground and air is around 15 degrees, while the relative humidity is around 95 percent. The lowest point of the cave is 30 metres above sea level. The first record of Biserujka dates from 1834 and is connected with the arrest of a smuggler from Senj who was allegedly hiding in it.
In around 1850, its entrance was closed with a door, which was the first time in Croatia that such a method of protecting a cave was applied. It was arranged for tourist visits in 1913, when the stone cottage and stairs were built. The long history of visiting is also witnessed by numerous graffiti. Many have been removed in the meantime, but some have been preserved as a trace of the past, among them the oldest from 1859.
Biserujka also has interesting inhabitants: 28 species of organisms have so far been discovered in it, among them six stenoendemics, i.e. narrow endemics of the Kvarner area. Bones of a cave bear about 16,000 years old have also been found in the cave. That animal lived there at the end of the Ice Age, when due to the lower sea level Krk was connected to the neighbouring mainland. The cave is connected by an educational walking path to the bay of Slivanjska. The walk takes about 30 minutes, and the path passes through a typical karst landscape, past dry-stone walls and rocky pastures lashed by the bora, all the way to the bay with a small harbour and a sandy beach. The ticket for Biserujka costs €7 for adults, €5 for children from three to 12 years old, while children under three pay nothing. During the winter months a visit is possible by prior arrangement.
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