This week I was sad to read about the death of the 94 year old “Salmon River Caveman”. Despite living in a jumble of caves gouged from the rock of the Salmon River in Idaho, USA, Richard Zimmerman was no neanderthal. Known as Dugout Dick, he was the last of Idaho’s famed river-canyon loners, a unique group who lived entirely of the land, away from the pressures of the world. Some of his caves were 60 feet deep, and while they could hardly be considered luxurious, being furnished mainly from junk, he still rented them out to intrepid adventurers.

These four thousand caves, hewn over centuries from the bizarrely shaped countryside, form the biggest concentration of inhabited caves in Europe.

Spanish rock and hole

Now Idaho’s caveman has gone, you might think your opportunity to stay in a cave house has gone too. Fortunately, there’s a place not in Idaho but in Southern Spain, where not just one person lives in a cave, but a whole town. If you’re driving through the province of Granada in Andalucia and you happen to see a white chimney sticking out of a hillside, or a front door leading into the side of a mountain, your brain hasn’t frazzled from the heat. No, you’ve just seen a cave house.

Capital of cavemen

Gaudix, a town of 20 000 people is the capital of the cavemen. Nestled in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it’s famous for its Barrio Troglodyte, where nearly half the population lives. These four thousand caves, hewn over centuries from the bizarrely shaped countryside, form the biggest concentration of inhabited caves in Europe.

Underground cool

Inside, the cave dwellings pretty much resemble any normal house, and some are very luxurious. But one of the best thing about them, and the reason the Moors originally began carving them into the soft rock more than 500 years ago, is that they provide an excellent escape from the fierce heat of the Granada sunshine. In fact, these energy efficient houses stay at about 20 degrees, all year round.

Cave into comfort

While comfort isn’t something you normally associate with holes in a rock, for those of us who’d rather not sacrifice all our home comforts, a night in a Gaudix cavehouse is a perfect compromise. The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcon, a cave hotel with 23 rooms, even has a swimming pool.

Dugout Dick probably wouldn’t have approved, but he’d doubtless be happy  that you at least braved a cave.