Nerja Caves & Frigiliana Spain

We journeyed about an hour away from our base of Fuengirola to see Cuevas de Nerja or the Caves of Nerja.  The views are beautiful along the way.  Every drive we have taken has been beautiful to watch.  

The Mediterranean is always pretty.  For our entire stay, we did not see any waves or whitecaps.  It looked like this picture the whole time.  Here is an ancient bridge on our way to Nerja the town.

This is Aqueduct Eagle which was built to carry water from Nerja town to the sugar refinery.  It was built in 1879.  I could not get a good picture but there are actually 4 layers of archs.  It is quite beautiful and I have never seen a pretty aqueduct before.  It is still in use today.

Nerja town photo and the beautiful Mediterranean was taken from the caves.  

These caves were 17 euros and 2 extra euros for the handheld audio. You take a self-guided tour and for us, we took our time dodging around School groups to avoid that chaos and noise and our tour lasted about 45 minutes.

There were countless pillars or stalagnates which have formed in this cave system and this is when a stalactite and stalagmite meet to form a column.

You can get some perspective on the size of these formations by looking at the photo to the right with people in the bottom left-hand corner.

There is a school tour down at the bottom and they did rob from the ambiance a bit because it is normally so quiet in caves and as you know children are not.  

These caves were not the dripping wet ones but you did get an occasional drip on you.

The walkway was well made and it was lit well enough to see the numbers on your handheld to request the number that would explain what you were seeing.

The pathway and railing are to the left and I took this shot because there is a huge cave formation that broke off in the last ancient earthquake 3800 years ago (they think) and is now lying on its side.

This cave system has the world's longest stalactite over 108 feet long but the width was ginormous. We called it Big Daddy. He was a bigun.

To get some perspective you can see the pathway and railing on the left side of the photo.  This thing was massive.

This shot is taken looking up at Big Daddy.  It had a waterfall effect carved into it by the water dripping over millions of years.

There are over 600 Paleolithic/Neanderthal drawings in the upper caves that you can not visit.   This is to help preserve them. 

When you have finished in the caves there are Botanical Gardens to see.  We did not feel that we had the time to see them so I cannot comment on them.

There is a 5-minute VR Tour included with your ticket.  I would highly recommend doing this as it shows you how the caves were formed from molten lava hardening and with the help of water dripping through and eventually rushing through which forms a cave system. You are seated during the VR tour which is a good thing for newbies who can feel dizzy and faint with VR.  The chairs could spin which was great to see everything.  The VR Tour also shows you the Neanderthals that inhabited the caves etc.

It took about 12 minutes to drive to Frigiliana from the Caves. The drive up to his mountain town is quite pretty. Orchards and pretty houses are hugging the cliffs on this steep drive up.

Driving up a steep road towards the white mountain town of Frigiliana.  I could not pronounce it in Spanish so I just called her Frigen Liana.

Frigiliana has very pretty views and lots of history but mostly pretty streets to take in.  The streets have cobblestone designs that really add to the beauty of this village.

The houses are all white and the pop of color is always a shade of blue which makes for a very pretty town.

The countryside is quite terraced for agricultural purposes.  In Costa del Sol where we were, they grow mangos, papayas and avocados. Spain is the world's leading producer of olives.  It would also be remiss to not mention their lovely wines.  Vino is big business here and Spain is the world's third largest producer of wines.  Crops are everywhere which adds to the prettiness of every drive that you take.

We stopped at Plaza 45 for lunch and we had a killer appetizer.  It was a large tasty Mediterranean date and almond wrapped in bacon soaked in Maple Syrup and baked. Delicious, and you can't go wrong with bacon ever!

Enjoying a glass of Spanish white.

The ancient aquaduct in upper Frigiliana.

The building that is not white is from the 1500s and is now a factory, how sad is that?  It has a beautiful design on it.

We walked up and down a few streets and explored this pretty little village.  

The cobblestone designs only added to the flavour of this beautiful little Spanish village.

This was my favourite street design.

My friends wanted to hop on the little train hoping to see more of the village.  I wouldn't recommend it for the 3.5 euro that it cost.  We really did not see anything more on the train and we were getting gassed by the engine.

Overall it was a very nice laidback day.

This was a beautiful walk-up to a residence in Frigiliana.

This is an up-close photo of the 16th-century building which was the Palace of the Counts of Frigilaiana or El Ingenio and now the only remaining molasses (sugar honey) factory in Europe.

Many of the houses are just hovering on the cliff and they have fantastic views of the Mediterranean Sea.

Spanish clay tiles add to the uniqueness of Spanish architecture.  This roof was at street level.

Once again there are so many fabulous doors in Spain that you could make a picture book for a coffee table. 

Every nook and cranny had a side street to someone's house.

This side street led to a bar with killer views of the Med.

I am not really sure what this was.  Someone had knit sweaters for this cactus.  This was a most peculiar thing to see no matter what country you are in.