Inspired by @gnilma’s hiking adventures, I bring you today an option when travelling to Seville or Malaga, south of Spain. On the verge of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, there is a cave dated back to the Upper Paleolithic, where you can find interesting paintings in the cave’s walls. These include images of goats, horses, deer and fish.
There is an hour and 45 minutes drive either from Sevilla or Malaga, through one carriage way hilly roads, which allows you to enjoy this area of Andalucia.
An option, also, could be to stay at the picturesque town of Ronda, which is situated just 23 km away from the cave (more info https://www.andalucia.org/en/ronda ). Here you can enjoy the sights of the Puente Nuevo, while you eat your meal at the Parador.
Once you arrived at the area, you can leave your car in the parking. From there, there is a path which leads to the cave.
It is not suitable for people on wheelchairs as it goes uphill, and you need to climb several steps.
It takes around 10 minutes to get to the main entrance of the cave.
An interesting point is that the cave is a family run business. It was discovered by a local farmer in 1905, as he was curious about a group of bats. He used their stools as a fertilizer. A few years later, a british who lived in Gibraltar visited the place, then he wrote a paper about the findings back in the UK. This information led Henri Breuil to investigate further and, in 1912, went to the cave for a visit that allowed to catalog the paintings.
In 1924, was declared National Monument and it can be visited nowadays. It requires an advanced booking through their website.
I leave you a link to the website https://cuevadelapileta.es
All reservations should be made in the official website as they run the admissions. You can either ring them or write them through the contact option in their website.
We were there back in 2021, and it was not difficult to get tickets though there still were a lot of restrictions for travelling due to COVID.
Thanks for the forward!
This is really cool. Did you enter the cave to see the cave paintings? I guess there are no photos of inside the cave because they probably ban people from taking pictures inside.
Yes ! We went inside and the paintings are great. Photos are not allowed, that’s why I haven’t posted any. Really impressive cave!