Largest virtual reality space in Spain opens at Cueva de Nerja

The new virtual reality room at the Nerja cave opened on Saturday 29 April, allowing people to ‘see’ parts of the cave that are closed to the public for safety or conservation reasons. Entrance to this new area is included in the price of a ticket to the historic site; one of the most visited natural monuments in the province of Malaga, with more than 436,000 tickets sold in 2022.

The tour lasts around twelve minutes and is virtually guided by the cave's new mascot, the animated character Tadeo Jones, following an agreement with the production company, Telecinco Cinema. It takes the visitor on a journey through Nerja, the Maro waterfall, the geological formation of the cave and the valuable cave paintings, with images of a Neanderthal man.

Visitors are given VR glasses and headphones so that they can fully immerse themselves in this technological immersion, without leaving their chairs. The virtual reality area is divided into two rooms, with a capacity for 360 people per hour in total and up to 65 people in each of the rooms during each experience.

According to information from the Cueva de Nerja foundation, an additional activity is being developed which will be available from June, exclusively for people with reduced mobility or other health problems that prevent them from physically visiting the Nerja cave. It will also show the galleries that are open to the public, allowing those who are not able to enter, to see the inside of the cave.

The 360-degree immersive video shows in detail how humans lived on Earth 35,000 years ago and cave paintings can be ‘touched’. Nerja’s cave has the largest collection of prehistoric art in Europe, with more than a thousand examples which cannot be accessed for conservation reasons. However, now through this technology the public can ‘see’ them.