St Michael's Cave

St Michael's Cave, hidden within the limestone heart of the Rock of Gibraltar, is one of the most spectacular natural sights of the territory, a vast complex of caverns adorned with soaring stalactites, stalagmites and flowing rock formations built up over countless millennia by dripping water. Known since ancient times, when some believed it bottomless or a gateway to the underworld, the great main chamber is today dramatically illuminated with shifting coloured light and serves as an atmospheric underground auditorium for concerts and events, its natural acoustics superb. Cool, cathedral-like and otherworldly, the cave is an unforgettable subterranean wonder tucked inside one of the world's most famous rocks.

History

Rainwater seeping through the limestone as weak carbonic acid widened cracks into passages and caverns over thousands of years. A Neolithic bowl found in 1974 and a charcoal drawing of an ibex dated to the Solutrean period show prehistoric people knew it, and the first factual description was written in 45 AD by Pomponius Mela, who wrote of a mountain whose western side is almost opened by a large cave. Gibraltar's first historian, Alonso Hernández del Portillo, recorded the name Cueva de San Miguel; the British tried to rename it St George's Cave, without lasting success, and in Victorian times it held picnics, concerts, weddings and even duels, while Captain Frederick Brome excavated it from April 1863 to December 1867, finding stone axes, shell jewellery, bone needles and pottery (Wikipedia, St. Michael's Cave).

What you'll find

• The main chamber - the vast cathedral-like cavern.
• The formations - the soaring stalactites and stalagmites.
• The light show - the dramatic shifting coloured illumination.
• The auditorium - the natural underground concert hall.

When to go

Year-round; the cave maintains a cool, constant temperature whatever the season, making it a welcome refuge on hot days and an all-weather attraction. It is usually visited as part of a tour of the Upper Rock, and events and concerts add to its atmosphere at times.

Good to know

St Michael's Cave is part of the paid Upper Rock reserve and can be busy with tour groups in peak season, and the dramatic coloured lighting is a matter of taste. As a vast, cathedral-like natural grotto of soaring formations deep within the famous Rock, dramatically lit and acoustically superb, though, the cave is a genuinely spectacular and memorable underground wonder.

Nearby

The Barbary macaques, the summit and the war tunnels lie on the Upper Rock.

Key facts