St. Michael’s Cave in the rock

When you head up the rock of Gibraltar one of the first sights you will come to is the cave of St. Michael. It is up the hill but we had taken a tour in a taxi so we didn’t have to do the hard walk. Outside the cave is some entertainment in the form of a few of the famous monkeys of Gibraltar. Legend has it as long as there are monkeys on the rock of Gibraltar the area will remain British – so they do keep some monkeys in reserve just to make sure the area will stay within the British realm.

After we have looked at the monkeys for a while we head inside the cave. We are not the first visitors to the cave – there are historic evidence there has been humans inhabitant the cave for up to 20,000 years – and given Neanderthal people lived in the area they might also have enjoyed the shelter of the cave even before homo sapiens dropped by.

The cave was well known in the ancient world it was known by Homer in ancient Greece and there has been ancient artefact found inside the cave so people have been coming here continuously. And when we walk inside it is pretty clear what keep attracting people – the climate inside is temperate and I am sure it is a nice during the hot summers of this area and gives protecting during the winter where the wind can be blowing. In addition to giving shelter the cave is beautiful. There are a lot of stalagmite and stalactite inside the cave with many different formations.

There are two levels of caves you can go and explore – and apparently the acoustic inside the cave is pretty good – judging by the many seats inside the large cave which can be used for different performances inside the cave.

It was nice to go inside the church and wonder around the different cave levels for a while. It is a pretty impressive cave which is a good attraction on the Rock of Gibraltar.