Roman rock

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Today we are leaving the ‘Sherry Flat’. I am dreading the drive out. Ian has extracted the car from its spot in the underground garage. Fortunately no one ever took up the space beside him as I did wonder how he would ever open the door to get in - the spaces are very tight! a several point turn has the car rotated the required 180 degrees to access the ramp and he is up and away. Now I just have to run back up to the flat, dump the keys and run back down before he gets a parking fine for loitering outside!

Now in the car and we are off, crawling up the first narrow road following a man who is walking his dog, as there is no way we can pass without flattening the chap’s canine companion. we reach the square and there is someone passing through the narrow, one-at-a-time street that we need to take. We wait in the wide square and Ian suddenly realises why the incoming vehicle is hesitating…we are on the wrong side of the road! Oops!

Now we are through, following the route we walked yesterday and phew, we have reached double width road. We take it cautiously as we have seen how fast the locals drive down this hill!

At last, we reach the town gate and it’s just a matter of navigating Ian out through the rest of town, negotiating a couple of tricky roundabouts and we are away, sailing down the wide A4 road, which is also called some other number. We have quickly learned that in Spain it’s not unusual for a road to have two or even three different numbers! Nothing like trying to confuse a foreigner. :-)

This is the main road to Cadiz although we branch off before we get there. I can see the suspension bridge in the distance. We are heading for Bolonia which is a slight detour towards the coast.

It’s noon, we have reached our destination - the archaeological park of Baelo Claudia. This is a fairly extensive Roman town which was once famous for its salted fish and trading centre with Tangiers. A friendly guy at the entrance tells us that we may enter for free and the car park is free too. That’s odd as this place, unlike a few we have seen this trip, is definitely worth paying to see!

We start off in a nice modern museum that details the background to the site and exhibits artefacts recovered from their dig. We then move outside for a tour of the town which includes, an aqueduct, forum, fish salting area and theatre. It’s a very good visit. The town was established around the first century BC after the first Roman invasion. It’s sheltered position on the coast ensured safe harbouring and good fishing, and it’s position between hills provided defence. The town was active until the third century AD when the Roman Empire began to collapse.

It’s annoying that we can almost touch the sand and sea from here…but a fence prevents us from doing so. You can’t blame them as car parking on the sand is a right bunfight out there and they want to protect their decent car park for the museum visitors. It’s very hot now so we decide against the bunfight today.

We make our back to the main road, returning the way we came. The traffic around Algeciras is gridlock in places…illustrating what is to come when we return our rental car on Friday. This is described as the busiest road in Andalucia. Ian has already accepted that we are allowing double the time that google says we need to return the hire car!

We have arrived at our hotel…a Holiday Inn, so much as you’d expect from a chain. A very comfortable room with all mod cons and free parking outside. This is good because we are taking the bus tomorrow and it stops just down the road. We should be able to see the Rock of Gibraltar from here but we’re in the middle of an industrial estate so I think other tall buildings are getting in the way.

We settle in, locate the bus stop for tomorrow and then we take the car out to nearby Palmones. Here we get a clear view of the rock from the Spanish bay. There’s supposed to be a beach here and, after walking alongside tge river, we do find it. But I don’t think you’d want to swim here. There are docks and oil tankers…no, I really don’t think so. A pity as this is probably my last chance for a seaside swim.

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