Hotton is a village a few kilometers from Durbuy. It is a lot bigger than Durbuy, and if you drive through the center with its many restaurants and take a long, winding road up, you will arrive at the domain of the Caves of Hotton.
Once arrived everything looks very normal. Nothing suggests that there is a cave system under your feet with corridors up to 6 kilometers long. But once you have bought your ticket and you are allowed to descend the long staircase (no less than 300 steps), you end up in a different, underground world. The Caves of Hotton are limestone caves, formed by rainwater that over many thousands, even millions of years, seeped into the ground and thus decomposed the limestone, step by step, little by little. All that water also flows out of the cave and eventually flows to the Ourthe. The years of combination of corrosion and erosion have created different types of caves: ranging from a gigantic underground gorge to a cavern of no less than 35 meters high and 10 meters wide. It is not for nothing that the caves of Hotton are called the “caves of a thousand and one nights” in French.
The caves are not as well known as its big brother the Grotten Van Han, because they were only discovered in the fifties. The original owner had even forbidden access at the time, because he was afraid it would hinder his activities in the quarry. Fortunately, those struggles are now over, because the caves of Hotton are certainly worth a trip.
More information about visiting hours and rates can be found on the site of the caves. Be sure to take a look there first, because you can only visit the caves with a guide on a guided tour.
Caves of Hotton
Chemin du Speleo Club 1, 6990 Hotton
Phone: +32 (0)84 46 60 46
www.grottesdehotton.be
