RADAVAC WATERFALL AND CAVE

This 90 ha protected area (Ujëvara dhe shpella e Radavcit, Radavačke pećine i vodopad) is located in the Albanian Alps National Park, less than 1 km west of the village of Radac/Radavac (1,300 mostly Albanian inhabitants). You first reach a parking lot next to the hotel-restaurant Ujëvara e Drinit ("source of the Drin"), then you have to continue on foot through the forest by a path for about 300 m. Then you reach the Radavac waterfall, at 600 m above sea level.

Waterfall. The place is called the "source of the White Drin" (Burimi i Drinit të Bardhë, Izvora Belog Drima), but it is in fact a resurgence. The White Drin is first of all an underground river which takes its source under the mount Žljeb (2 382 m of altitude). It emerges here with a beautiful 25 m high waterfall with a flow that can reach 65^m3/second at the end of winter. Drowned in the greenery, the Radavac waterfall is a bucolic spot and a protected area since 1983. But the place is very frequented by the inhabitants of the region and by the tourists with several restaurants in the vicinity. Slightly below, the river is also developed with a hydroelectric power plant, created by a Russian immigrant in 1934, which still supplies the nearby village with electricity. Following the path to the left of the waterfall, you will reach the Radavac cave.

Cave. Called the "Sleeping Beauty" in Albanian (Bukuroshja e fjetur), this 1,420 m long cave is rich in stalactites, stalagmites and columns. But its main characteristic is to have "baths", small natural limestone basins which retain the water coming from the underground network of the White Drin. Explored from 2002, it has been developed since 2016 with Swiss funding and managed by the Peja/Peć Aragonit Speleo Caving Club. A portion of about 300 m in length is thus open to visitors with three galleries. In the first one, animal bones from the Paleolithic period have been found, suggesting that the site was frequented by the first humans in Kosovo at that time. The third gallery houses the famous "baths". The lighting in red tones was thought for the current inhabitants of the cave. The cave is home to hundreds of bats belonging to four species (great rhinolophus, lesser rhinolophus, lesser murine and Schreibers' minnow).