Ah, urban legends... we believe them when we're young, they can fascinate or terrify us, but as we grow old these fantasies end up buried in a forgotten place, just like the origin of the stories themselves... Well, today's report is about proving the realness of one of those legends (yes I'm trying to sound epic!)
In my town, tunnels serve every kind of purpose you could throw in a fantasy book: they're supposed to hide the treasure of the Jews, they were used during medieval times of war, even a monster is supposed to live down there! But what is true and what I do know is that the old people in town remember 'playing in dark holes' many years ago. Since I live in a really significant historical place, most of the spots are either lost/sealed/developed for tourism. For many years I've been obsessed with those stories I kept hearing, and recently a set of circumstances led me to a place very few people have been inside... just to start teasing, this is the only publicly available photograph of it, taken from a book about water systems in the city I took from work:
Now let me tell you a bit of real facts about what's going on here: In the outskirts of town there's a water mine. It is proven that it dates back at least to the 15th century, but archaeologists think it could be the original source of water from when the city was founded in Roman times. You can walk around the tunnel, see some of the chimneys...you realise something's there, but dreams of getting inside end up here:
That's the end of the tunnel, I always go and walk the dog around the surroundings.
Walking on top you can see the chimneys and make out the lenght and shape of the tunnel (this 'modern' section is 460 metres long).
At some point you can cleary spot the construction of the gallery, with some capped off chimneys. (Yes, that's my dog)
The mine ends here (or so I thought...) you can see the tunnel leading to the construction, which I had always thought was were the water must've been.
If you look very closely, you can see how the number 7 was a 5, so the original date of the construction must be in the 1500's.
''Benedicte Fontes Domino - Blessed Be the Fountains of The Lord''... Damn, it sounds almost mystical.
You can make the whole way back following the wall of the tunnel, but this is where it gets interesting...
I'm not gonna brag about where and how we got in about this one, but it was a fucking dream come true. I'd passed by that place so many times, but one day we were scouting locations with @Bertuu and he spotted a foxhole... There was an evening of digging in the dark involved, but we had already been chased by a dog that afternoon trying to get into a fort (that's another story...) so we made sure to hide our workings and waited a few days, until the stars aligned and bang, we were inside:
That's the 'modern' part of the mine, it has been mantained over the years and was used up until the 70's to supply to the very nearby area.
Bad picture but you can make out the length of the section (this is the 460 metres tunnel with twists and turns from the beginning of the report).
Also you can spot the little water canal on the left.
I will admit we weren't keen on the zombie spiders (but we finally met them!) and there were also some bats so we didn't do the full length of this tunnel,
so we headed down to the interesting bits.
That's the building from earlier, at this point there starts to be water on the floor for which we weren't prepared at all...
Even looking from outside I'd never seen that other portal leading into the mountain...but I'd read about it: 125 metres long at 2 different levels leading to a 25 metres shaft,
that's the part of the mine that's thought to date back to roman times.
Looking at this, we were feeling like Indiana Jones finding the entrance to the underworld, tripping out about how such a place could have been
right under our noses for all of our lives...so the legends were true!
(The ugly square thing, we guessed it must've been for archaeological laser measurements? There were a few of them dotted around).
That's another level of tunnel... walls only 40 cms wide at some point, flooded floor up to the ankles.
And then...a handrail? That was a weird find.
After a few steps you come to this section which is a bit different in style.
The rails were really out of place and not necessary at all, we didn't understand why or who put them there.
There were some carvings on the wall for candles.
A total change in style, now it really feels we're in the oldest part of the mine.
Still, the perfectly preserved water canal on the floor!
Here the tunnel diverted in 2 different sections, one of them was flooded and the other one led to the 25 metres shaft, so we were quite careful at this point.
I'm sorry that I didn't take proper pics of the shaft, there were some modern steel plates there for archaeologists to move around, but we didn't dare to...
With such an adrenaline rush, the joy, the unexpectedness of having just done what we'd done, I couldn't concentrate on taking pics, I got some more for anyone interested but this is a selection of the best I could do...please enjoy this space as it's not fully documented anywhere but here!
Final anecdote: on the way out, some dog walker or something had covered our access with rocks...fucking scary, but we just had to kick them...ufff, until next time!!!!!
In my town, tunnels serve every kind of purpose you could throw in a fantasy book: they're supposed to hide the treasure of the Jews, they were used during medieval times of war, even a monster is supposed to live down there! But what is true and what I do know is that the old people in town remember 'playing in dark holes' many years ago. Since I live in a really significant historical place, most of the spots are either lost/sealed/developed for tourism. For many years I've been obsessed with those stories I kept hearing, and recently a set of circumstances led me to a place very few people have been inside... just to start teasing, this is the only publicly available photograph of it, taken from a book about water systems in the city I took from work:
Now let me tell you a bit of real facts about what's going on here: In the outskirts of town there's a water mine. It is proven that it dates back at least to the 15th century, but archaeologists think it could be the original source of water from when the city was founded in Roman times. You can walk around the tunnel, see some of the chimneys...you realise something's there, but dreams of getting inside end up here:
That's the end of the tunnel, I always go and walk the dog around the surroundings.
Walking on top you can see the chimneys and make out the lenght and shape of the tunnel (this 'modern' section is 460 metres long).
At some point you can cleary spot the construction of the gallery, with some capped off chimneys. (Yes, that's my dog)
The mine ends here (or so I thought...) you can see the tunnel leading to the construction, which I had always thought was were the water must've been.
If you look very closely, you can see how the number 7 was a 5, so the original date of the construction must be in the 1500's.
''Benedicte Fontes Domino - Blessed Be the Fountains of The Lord''... Damn, it sounds almost mystical.
You can make the whole way back following the wall of the tunnel, but this is where it gets interesting...
I'm not gonna brag about where and how we got in about this one, but it was a fucking dream come true. I'd passed by that place so many times, but one day we were scouting locations with @Bertuu and he spotted a foxhole... There was an evening of digging in the dark involved, but we had already been chased by a dog that afternoon trying to get into a fort (that's another story...) so we made sure to hide our workings and waited a few days, until the stars aligned and bang, we were inside:
That's the 'modern' part of the mine, it has been mantained over the years and was used up until the 70's to supply to the very nearby area.
Bad picture but you can make out the length of the section (this is the 460 metres tunnel with twists and turns from the beginning of the report).
Also you can spot the little water canal on the left.
I will admit we weren't keen on the zombie spiders (but we finally met them!) and there were also some bats so we didn't do the full length of this tunnel,
so we headed down to the interesting bits.
That's the building from earlier, at this point there starts to be water on the floor for which we weren't prepared at all...
Even looking from outside I'd never seen that other portal leading into the mountain...but I'd read about it: 125 metres long at 2 different levels leading to a 25 metres shaft,
that's the part of the mine that's thought to date back to roman times.
Looking at this, we were feeling like Indiana Jones finding the entrance to the underworld, tripping out about how such a place could have been
right under our noses for all of our lives...so the legends were true!
(The ugly square thing, we guessed it must've been for archaeological laser measurements? There were a few of them dotted around).
That's another level of tunnel... walls only 40 cms wide at some point, flooded floor up to the ankles.
And then...a handrail? That was a weird find.
After a few steps you come to this section which is a bit different in style.
The rails were really out of place and not necessary at all, we didn't understand why or who put them there.
There were some carvings on the wall for candles.
A total change in style, now it really feels we're in the oldest part of the mine.
Still, the perfectly preserved water canal on the floor!
Here the tunnel diverted in 2 different sections, one of them was flooded and the other one led to the 25 metres shaft, so we were quite careful at this point.
I'm sorry that I didn't take proper pics of the shaft, there were some modern steel plates there for archaeologists to move around, but we didn't dare to...
With such an adrenaline rush, the joy, the unexpectedness of having just done what we'd done, I couldn't concentrate on taking pics, I got some more for anyone interested but this is a selection of the best I could do...please enjoy this space as it's not fully documented anywhere but here!
Final anecdote: on the way out, some dog walker or something had covered our access with rocks...fucking scary, but we just had to kick them...ufff, until next time!!!!!
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