Formed 7,000 to 9,000 years ago under the wet limestone that covers Slovensky Raj, a subterranean shift buried the rock that had been carved for thousands of years by glacial rivers.

The cave has been sheltered from above ground temperatures ever since. Indeed, the cave's average temperature is minus one degree Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit) keeping a 98 percent relative humidity. All this adds up to a perfect place for ice to settle and form.

In 1870 Eugene Ruffini, a Hungarian naturalist, discovered the cave whose 25-meter thick floor holds an estimated 145,000 cubic meters of ice. In 1887 Dobsina was the first cave in Europe to be fitted with electrical lighting.