Gruta da Falsa

In the last century, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the following decade, speleological interest in the Aire and Candeeiros Mountain Ranges grew by leaps and bounds. The success of opening to tourists the Santo António (1971), Alvados (1973) and Mira de Aire (1974) caves, led some locals to seize the challenge of finding new caves that could also be explored. In Alvados, João Lopes gained notoriety for unblocking the spring that gave access to Gruta da Falsa (Falsa Cave). This spring, in operation during the rainy season, flows from one of the most prominent fault escarpments in the Alvados polje: Pena da Falsa. With an irregular longitudinal profile, the development of the cave, which is almost 2 kilometres long, has its progression hampered by galleries, siphons and narrow meanders, one of which is even called a squeezer. However, the narrow passages cannot undermine its importance. On the contrary. Falsa Cave is one of the main springs in the region and its interest, which goes beyond hydrology, extends to the speleogenetic evolution found in the surprising depths of the Alvados polje.