While inland Andalusia is well served by rail, the coastal region is not. Malaga connects to Fuengirola, but for other destinations you take a bus. Alsa bus service is pretty good. We returned to Malaga from Cordoba by train and walked across the road to the Bus Station to buy tickets from there to Nerja. There’s a regular service, and the fifty mile journey takes an hour and a quarter. The bus passes along Malaga’s seafront, before heading into the rugged rural countryside towards Motril.

Nerja, lies at the eastern extremity of the Costa Del Sol. It has a population of twenty thousand, though that swells considerably in the summer months. We are deposited on High Street, the main thoroughfare north of the town and take a taxi to our hotel. The Marisol is an online hotel, trading tradition hotel service for tempting low price. But there is a receptionist available until four pm when we arrive. It couldn’t be more central. It faces onto a square with the sea to one side and the narrow pedestrianised streets leading back uphill. There is a picturesque church to one side of the square and sheltering trees dappling the sunshine. The Balcon de Europe, Nerja’s nickname and lure, lies along the southern edge, presiding over an awesome sea view.

The phrase is attributed to Alfonso XII, King of Spain who visited the village in 1884 after an earthquake had struck the region. Admiring the view, he said “this is the balcony of Europe”. Alonso himself died just a year later, at the age of twenty seven. The area around the Balcon once held an artillery battery and a fort which was destroyed during the Peninsular War in1812. A few guns survive on the Balcony, and remnants of the fort litter the sea below. It is an impressive view. There are beaches to each side of the promintory.

The square is thronged when we arrive. The Marisol’s gelateria is giving out free ice cream, adding to the happy hubbub. I get a long awaited beer at the attached bar, so we are both happy. Evening falls and the square and surrounding narrow streets fill up some more. Towards the west of town, the neighbourhood is known as El Barrio, which has a pleasantly homey feel as the name suggests. We get a good meal there in an unscenic restaurant that is friendly, with affordable and excellent main plates. Lasagne for me. The bars are filling up and we grab stools at the counter to catch the Champions League quarter final where Arsenal stuff Real with two glorious strikes from Declan Rice. M is most impressed, though I’m in two minds myself.

Nerja was settled by the Romans, and the Moors after that; but they were modernist blow ins. The Nerja Caves, a couple of miles east of town, were host to human settlement as far back as thirty thousand years ago. A visit to the caves is a must. A ticket to the caves includes a street train to the site, with admission and virtual visual tour too, plus admission to Nerja’s excellent town centre museum.

We took an early train and the crowds were sparse, giving more time and space to enjoy the experience. We took about two hours exploring, by which time lunchtime crowds were beginning to swell. It’s probably a better idea to do the virtual tour first, but we found ourselves inside the caves and decided to continue. As guidance, we had to download the ap, which worked well for M’s phone, but mine lost it as we descended.

Such idea I have of prehistoric cave dwelling is of a small group of people living in an alcove on a cliff face. They may paint matchstick men, cats and dogs, on the back wall, or huddle back there any time a leopard passes. The Nerja caves paint a different picture. These are vast linked caverns, resembling cathedrals in both space and glorious formations. Stalactites, stalagmites and columns soaring into the inner space.

The different areas are given evocative titles: Hall of the the Nativity, Hall of Phanthoms, Hall of Cataclysm, the Hall of the Waterall, also known as the Hall of the Ballet. Cataclysm is named for a major rock fall, wonderfully illustrating the forces of narture at work to build this natural phenomenon. The largest column is nearby, soaring more than thirty metres from floor to ceiling.

The modern discovery of the caves happened in 1959. A group of five local boys, Jose Barbero, Francisco Navas, Jose Torres and brothers Manuel and Migual Munoz, had noticed bats escaping through a gap in the hillside and found their way inside. There they chanced upon a skeleton and believing it to be, like them, a casual explorer who had been trapped, they beat a hasty retreat to avoid his fate. The following day, however, they informed their teacher, whom they took back to the caves. Word spread, photographs in the Malaga Press stirred public interest. and within eighteen months the caves were opened as a visitor attraction, and crucially a centre for archeological research

In June 1960 the gala opening featured. a ballet accompanied by the Malaga Symphony Orchestra within the natural theatre underground since dubbed the Hall of Ballet. This started the annual performances of the Nerja Music and Dance Festival. After almost sixty years the caves ceased to be used as a venue and performances have been moved to an outdoor auditorium nearby.

On exit, we discovered the theatre for the virtual tour. We had to queue for half an hour as a bus tour had beaten us to it. Worth the wait. We gathered in an interior room with a few dozen others, put on the headgear and set off for a tour inside our heads. This barrels through the millennia, good on the necessary detail, witty in its use of a Woodyesque guide. Along with the cave itself, and the visit to the Museum next day, we got quite a detailed picture of a fascinating part of European human history; pre-history to be correct.

Neanderthals lived in the region until the race died out over thirty thousand years ago, just before the last Ice Age. There is evidence that they lived here, and made cave art dating back forty thousand years. Passing humans and hyenas occupied the caves for five thousand years from about 25,000BC. Though not at the same time, and if so, not for long. After 20,000 BC humans took up permanent residency. As the Ice Age waned, the hunter gatherer culture expanding to animal husbandry and agriculture. Textiles and pottery were developed by the dawn of the Bronze Age. Wandering through the caves you can see how several large groups could be housed. This culture were some of Europe’s earliest artists. Cave paintings were discovered here, which can be understood with representations and explanations in Nerja’s museum. The actual paintings are inaccessible to civilian explorers.

The Museum is located in a modern, quiet square in Nerja, the Plaza de Espana. This gives an excellent account of the town and the region, as well as the Caves. Outside the door, Nerja itself offers much to enjoy. The beaches are small and scenic, and the sea is a vibrant, often spectacular presence. The town is lively with shoppers and strollers all day and continuing into a busy nightlife with a great choice of bars and restaurants. You can eat well and very reasonably here. We had a glorious Thai curry at Asian Ben near the Balcon and there’s a lively Little Italy Restaurant along Calle Carabeo for pizza, pasta, birra; for almost nothing at all. Nerja’s noisy for sure, but good fun, good looking and, of course, the best caves ever. Yabba dabba do!

In the morning we took a bus direct to the airport. There are good breakfast spots near the ‘station’ ( a kiosk in fact). La Nube was our go-to venue. The bus leaves at eleven and takes about ninety minutes.

I recall when I was small

How I spent my days alone

The busy world was not for me

So I went and found my own

I would climb the garden wall

With a candle in my hand

I’d hide inside a hall of rock and sand

The Caves of Altamira is an appropriate song to finish on. Altamira is in northern Spain, the first and formative example of prehistoric cave art discovered. The Nerja caves provide another piece of the jigsaw. The song was written by Steely Dan’s dynamic duo, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. It is on their 1976 album, The Royal Scam. I relate very strongly to the lyrics here. A hymn to the power of Art. A silent power, free of needless noise. These artists, these Painters, were not being intellectual, they were painting what they saw. Very good they were too. The first masters of realist painting, which is the best type of painting there is. So there.