Rosh HaNikra Grottoes

CavesBatı Celile, Lübnan sınırı,Israel

A white chalk headland on Israel's Lebanese border dropping seventy metres into the Mediterranean, hollowed by storms into 200 metres of walkable sea caves.

September·Peaking now

Jun–Sep

High summer is the calm, clear heart of the grottoes' year: the settled sea holds the water still and lit turquoise, deepest late in the day when the west-facing cave mouths catch the low sun.

Year-round The white chalk headland, its sea caves and the sealed railway tunnels stand every month. But this Lebanese-border site keeps shutting to war, sealed again as a military zone since May 2026's drone strike.

The Rosh HaNikra Grottoes are sea caves in a headland of white chalk on the Lebanese border of Israel, where the cliff drops seventy metres into the Mediterranean and the storms have hollowed it into some 200 metres of chambers that are walked through on a lit path, reached by a cable car that tips off the cliff top at a pitch of sixty degrees. The chalk is soft, and the winter waves have cut it into tunnels and rooms that the sea still enters, so that the walkway threads from chamber to chamber over bridges and along ledges with the water surging in below, turquoise where the light comes through the openings; stepping back into the unlit part of a chamber turns the mouth into a bright blue window, and with the winter storms gone the sea settles, stops churning the chalk and clears to the bottom through the warm months. The cable car covers the seventy metres to sea level in about two minutes, hanging over open water for most of it. The headland was a crossing before it was a sight: Alexander's army is said to have cut a passage through it, and British engineers bored a railway tunnel through the cliff in 1941 and 1942 so that trains could run from Haifa to Beirut and Tripoli, and the tunnel is walked to a sealed door at the border. The armistice line between Israel and Lebanon was signed in the customs house here in 1949, and the fence, the naval base and the UN post are all in view from the clifftop. Three small islands about 800 metres offshore have been closed to people since 1965 so that seabirds can nest, and a Mediterranean monk seal, one of the rarest seals on Earth, turned up in the empty grottoes when the site was closed by war. Rosh HaNikra is a cliff the sea has entered, and the border runs through it.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The site is closed to visitors — it has opened and shut repeatedly since 2023, so check the operator's own channels before you plan anything around it.
Late afternoon is the grottoes' hour — the cave mouths face west, so that is when daylight reaches deepest into the chambers and the water lights up.
The chalk stays wet — spray and seepage keep the walkway and its steps slick all year, so wear shoes with grip rather than sandals.
There is no swimming here — the cliff drops straight into the sea with no beach, and the marine reserve around it allows entry only at designated beaches like Achziv.
If it reopens, go in the first hour — the cable cars carry only about eight people at a time, so summer afternoons back up at the top.

Things to do

1
Walk the loop through the hollowed chalk
A walkway threads from chamber to chamber through roughly 200 metres of cave, over bridges and along ledges cut into the rock. The chalk is damp and pale, the swell thumps somewhere behind the wall, and every few steps another arch opens onto the sea. On a calm day the pool inside goes glassy and you can pick out pale stones several metres down — the white cave floor throwing the light back up through the water.
2
Stand in the dark and watch the sea glow at the cave mouth
Step back into the unlit part of a chamber and the opening becomes a bright blue window. Your eyes adjust, the people ahead of you turn to black silhouettes against the water, and the sea outside looks lit from underneath.
3
Walk the railway tunnel the British cut towards Beirut
British engineers bored this tunnel through the headland in 1941 and 1942 so trains could run from Haifa on to Beirut and Tripoli. A stretch of it now forms part of the way in, lit and dry — and it stops at rock, because the line beyond has been sealed since 1948.
4
Drop down the cliff face by cable car
The car tips off the cliff top at a 60-degree pitch and covers the 70 metres to sea level in about two minutes, hanging out over open water for most of it. Its operator calls it the steepest cable car in the world; whatever the ranking, the angle is steep enough that you spend the ride looking straight down the white face.

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Nearby

107 km