Sophie Ashdown

I was in Nerja in Spain at the end of October and was lucky enough to go to some absolutely incredible caves just outside of the town, called Cueva de Nerja.

The caves have been there for thousands and thousands of years but were only discovered more recently in 1959 by a group of teenage boys who are messing about nearby and decided to explore a little crevice that they found. They went through thinking that they wouldn’t get very far and but managed to venture further where they found these huge enormous cathedral size caves.

It was a huge discovery in Spain and became a really big news story at the time, with the boys becoming minor celebrities. The local government created walkways and ropes in the caves to make them safe for visitors and opened part of it to the public.

I went to see the caves with my dad and my two boys Tristan (17) and AJ (15). We were all blown away by the immense size of the caves with their huge stalactites and stalagmites.

The scale is astonishing. It’s hard to describe and I’m not sure that the photos do it do them justice but it was incredible.

After tens of thousands of years, the caves had formed some astounding patterns and shapes that would normally defy nature but they’re actually purely made from nature.

There was one section where some stalactites had broken off and you can see the intricate pattern underneath from the broken area and the layers of the rocks that have formed over the millennium.

Apparently they found evidence of of human habitation in the caves from more than 20,000 years ago. It is suspected that the locals at the time used the caves as a place to stay cool in the summer when it was very hot outside, and also to take shelter for various reasons.

Nowadays the caves are a big tourist attraction and they also use some of the caves for music concerts and other performances, but we weren’t able to see those as part of the tour that we did. We did get a virtual reality tour with headset that was really incredible to see.

Obviously I am a big fan of patterns in any form and in particular when patterns appear in nature. I’m so happy that I got to see nature in action at Cueva de Nerja.