bauheed

Cueva de la Menga and Cueva de la Viera are located next to each other on the left hand side of the road as you leave the Northern end of Antequera. There’s a big green sign on the road next to them.

There is a portacabin next to the sites which was manned when I was there. The person provided a leaflet with a map showing how to get to La Cueva de Romeral, which was helpful, as it is not quite so easy to find. They were also giving away some nice free posters when I was there.

Cueva de la Menga is impressive, and has obviously been located with the Los Enamorados hill face in full view of the entrance. Three massive stone menhirs support the roof, of which the centre one features a square cavity.

Some impressive cave art here, and a fine collection of finds (including bones and tools) are on display. No photographs are allowed within the caves, but they do sell postcards.

In the summer months the caves are closed between 1 and 4 pm, so make sure you don’t arrive just as they close for lunch. We arrived just in time for the last tour of the morning session at 1 pm having just been to the Ronda Dolmen. Well worth the visit it was too. The Guide was knowledgable, and although he spoke primarily in Spanish he did ensure that we as the only English speaking folks on the tour were not left out. The parafin lamps provided make the tour all the more atmospheric.

There are numerous cave paintings, the most impressive of which is an image of a fish. There’s also images of buffalo and human figures. The limestone cave formations are impressive too, and they even speculate that a formation that they call “The Organ” was used to make music. Certainly striking the long narrow collumns of limestone formations created a wonderful resonating sound.

The directions to the Ronda Dolmen in The Megalithic European are either out of date or there is a typing error in the road numbering. The road that you need to take heading from Ronda to Sevilla is the A374 and not the A376 as stated in the book. I also did not see the KM107 sign mentioned in the text, however the turnoff onto the A372 to Grazalema is fairly prominent. Once on this road the track to the dolmen was fairly easy to find – the chain supported but two small green posts is right there as mentioned. You need to follow this track round on foot past the edge of a field, and then past a fenced in olive grove. The dolmen is actually on the edge this olive grove on the far side, behind some babed wire. You can get up close by skirting round the olive grove, along the edge of another field.

As described in The Megalithic European, the setting is a wonderful bowl, surrounded by mountins.

We combined our visit to the Ronda Dolmen with a visit to the Cueva de la Pileta which is not too far away from here.