El Castillo y Las Monedas

 

The Monte Castillo caves, located in Puente Viesgo, are a set of four cavities. Two are open to the public: El Castillo and Las Monedas.

If you wish to buy online for the two caves, the intervals between the start of each visit should be of at least 60 minutes of difference. Remember to be at the box office, located at the Rock Art Center of Cantabria, at least, 45minutes before the start of the first visit to obtain the tickets from one or two caves.

 
 
Description

 

On the banks of the Pas River, on its way through Puente Viesgo, Monte El Castillo rises up, a cone-shaped limestone hill, which hides inside an intricate labyrinth of caves frequented by man in Prehistory.

About 675 metres away from the well-known cave of El Castillo, following the path skirting the hill, lies the Las Monedas cave, the longest in Monte El Castillo.

Out of the 800 meters forming the cave, some 160 meters are visited. The route houses a genuine sight: stalactites, stalagmites, discs, columns, hanging terraces and blasts of color, due to the varied mineralogical composition of the rock, marking out a geological passageway. The dissolution processes of calcite and sedimentation and casting make the visit to the cave nothing but a gift, bristling with beauty and color to the sight.

Unlike the El Castillo cave, the figurative cave wall artistic expressions are concentrated in a small side grotto, just a few meters away from the entrance area. The highly homogenous group, from a technical point of view (black stenciled drawing) and style pointing to a unique phase of execution, comprises at least 17 animal figures and diverse forms of signs or sets of lines that are difficult to interpret. Especially horses and, to a lesser extent, reindeer, goats, bison, a bear and a few undetermined animals, make up a varied bestiary corresponding to a cold climatic phase. Dating by C14 AMS sets the execution of the figures during a glacial phase occurring some 10,000 B.C.

 

Cave of Cantabria

Cuevas