Ardales is a town and municipality in the

Province of Málaga The province of Málaga ( es, Provincia de Málaga ) is located in Andalusia, Spain. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south and by the provinces of Cádiz to the west, Seville to the northwest, Córdoba to the north, and Granada to ...

, part of the autonomous community of

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

in southern

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. The municipality is approximately 62.5 kilometres from

Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...

. On the hill above the town is the historic church and higher still are the ruins of the Ardales Castle. At the peak of the hill is the hermitage Ermita del Calvario. The infamous ''

Caminito del Rey ''El Caminito del Rey'' (The King's Little Path) is a walkway pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Ardales in the province of Málaga, Spain. Its name derives from the original name of ''Camino del Rey'' (King's P ...

'' is nearby. A paper published in 2021 disclosed that the Cave of Ardales (''cueva de doña Trinidad Grund'') contains pigments deposited by Middle

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

s some 64,800 years ago.

References

External links

"Ardales, Andalusia, Spain" Motion Views
photographs of Ardales
Municipalities in the Province of Málaga {{Andalusia-geo-stub