Scale

The weather was forecast to be not quite as warm today, so we decided to visit the caves of Nerja (actually, it was a gorgeous day, but we stuck to the plan). Despite having been to Nerja several times we'd never bothered with the caves. My expectations were not great, but actually we were rather bowled over by the sheer scale of them. You don't get to see any of the few cave paintings in situ, but the natural beauty is spectacular enough. They are very civilised caves, fully equipped with concrete steps, handrails, and lighting. You have to go round in a group with a guide whose main purpose is to keep everyone together, round up stragglers, and keep them moving. Extra bonus: because it's Monday, the tour was free -- it cost just 2 euros for the audioguide and 1 euro for the car park.

Once we came out, we decided to go to the museum in Nerja. Woot -- that was free too! It was quite interesting, giving a potted history of trade and manufacture in Nerja from prehistory to the modern day. In the deepest part of the basement we found an exhibition of paintings by Polish artist Maurice Zalcman, who lived in Paris for many years but spent a lot of time in Nerja -- the exhibition had officially closed yesterday but they hadn't got round to removing them. This was a good thing, because we really liked them. Zalcman had a remarkable life, escaping from a train taking him to Auschwitz, crossing the Pyrenees to Spain, being arrested by the Guardia Civil, and on release joining the Free French in North Africa. The catalogue of the exhibition is here.

Lunchtime by now -- we shared yet another bowl of salmorejo and a salad on a lovely terrace overlooking the sea, having been dragged in by a waiter, before the obligatory ice cream on the Balcon de Europa. The day wasn't over yet -- instead of going home we headed straight to the nature reserve in Motril. It was actually open, the late afternoon light was beautiful, but I'm not blipping it because as it was an unplanned visit I didn't have the DSLR with me. My little camera was not up to the task of zooming in on distant birds! If we have time we'll go back though -- there were loads of birds, lots of different hides to view them from, and I even briefly spotted two baby wild boar romping through the reeds.