In the town of Foix, “La rivière souterraine de Labouiche,” or the Underground River of Labouiche is the longest navigable underground river in Europe, and has been open to the public since 1938 (thanks to the adventurous men who spent 30 years exploring and mapping it). The tour takes you through 1.5 km of the river, which is located about 60 m underground. Since it had just opened for the season, we were the only ones there and ended up getting a private tour.

The guides don’t have paddles at all – they use the two steel cables you see on the left in the picture above to pull the boats along. The trip lasts about 75 minutes, and they take you past all sorts of waterfalls and rock formations. Our guide was very informative and shared a lot of information about the history of the area, and the geology of the site.

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