Castillo de Castellar de la Frontera

Under the archway and into the old town of Castellar

It has to have one of the best entrances into any town in Europe.  After trekking uphill from the newer and rather more bland town of Castellar, the rewards of walking under this medieval Moorish arch into the old castle grounds wherein lies the huddle of white houses that make up the old town are the breathtaking views and the feeling that for a short while you have a taste of what it might have been like all those centuries ago.

The old town of Castellar de la Frontera was built inside the grounds of the castle - higgeldy piggeldy white houses, leaning on each other for support as they keep an eye from the peak of the hill over the plains that stretch as far as the Bay.  On a clear day, the Rock of Gibraltar is clearly visible.  People have lived here since the dawn of history.  Traces of the stone age peoples who sheltered on this hill have been found nearby, and the ancient remains of a watch-tower was eventually taken by the Romans who settled the area as part of a system of defences stretching from the Bay at Carteya through to the important city of Cordoba.

The town itself and the castle proper was built by the Moslem invaders of Spain as they entered Al Andalus and spread their reign northwards.  Castellar, with its strategic fortification, was an instrumental town in the wars between the Christians and the Moslems until 1434, when D. Juan Arias de Saavedra conquered it for the Christian kings.

After that the town lived a sleepy, rural existence until more recent times, when the local area was developed in the 1960s and 1970s, and a new town was built at the base of the hill.  The population of the old town was moved to the newer houses, and for many years the old medieval town was abandoned, until some more adventurous - some have said "hippie" people moved in.  The little community gradually reawoke and now Castellar boasts homes to numerous artists, writers, pretty rural houses, at least one museum and a hotel.

Perched on a crag at the top of a hill, a little out of the way and surrounded with the greenery of the Alcornocales and the sapphire of the Mediterranean sky, Castellar de la Frontera is a little jewel of a place.  Its cobblestone streets meander about the old castle grounds and occasionally open up into cosy squares scented with oranges from the many trees.  The view is at once calming and magnificent and the air delightfully clear, which, for those of us living around the edge of the Bay of Gibraltar (or the Bay of Algeciras) depending which side of the border you're standing on) is a novelty and a rare treat to be savoured.

View from a terrace in the old town of Castellar

Pinar del Rey - the King's Forest

Pinar del Rey in early May

This is just a glimpse of what the forests that stretched from the edges of the Alcornocales down to the Bay of Gibraltar (or la Bahia de Algeciras, depending on what side of the border you happen to originate) might once have looked like.  There are just pockets of these woods left now, and this one, on the edge of San Roque happens to be one of my favourite spots for a picnic and a gentle walk on a Sunday afternoon. Covering an area of over 330 hectares, it provides peace, tranquility, the chance to breathe clean air that is tinged with the scent of the pines instead of burned diesel, or that hums with the chirruping of crickets instead of high-speed traffic.  Pinar del Rey is like the lungs of the Campo de Gibraltar, and one of the few places around here where you can breathe deeply and smell earth and trees and flowers.  I love it.

The woods date back to 1800, when the Spanish King Fernando planted the forest of pine trees and cork oaks to supply much-needed wood for the Spanish Navy, in those days, still a naval force to be reckoned with.  After the Battle of Trafalgar, the Spanish Navy found itself in a state of crisis and demand for the wood plummeted.  Which is just as well, because we have been lucky enough to have been left with a jewel of nature on our very doorsteps.

When I visited earlier this year, there were groups of school children from the nearby San Roque, taking lessons in the open air, and learning to identify the different trees and plants.  I tagged along a little way behind to listen and take the edge off my ignorance but stopped short at hugging los alcornoques.  Great way for kids to learn though.

To an utter layperson in terms of nature, as I am, it appears perfect - an area with seating and ready-built barbies for family gatherings which encourage kids to enjoy open spaces; a variety of pathways so you can walk the area with varying degrees of distance and difficulties, and there is what in the UK we used to call a "trim trail" which are regular spots where the fitter amongst us pause in their rambling to carry out more intense exercise. Luckily for me there is usually an old tree stump nearby where I can watch from a safe distance until we all move forward again.  There's a Nature Centre with lots of useful information, especially if you really want to learn a bit about the nature that surrounds you.  The more demanding routes are in the Northern part of the park.  Perhaps I will build up gently towards those over the next few months.  Yes, I know it's winter, but provided there's not a deluge, I'd rather be plodding around the hills in 12 degrees than panting about in 32.

Roman ruins and sand dunes

The Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia

At the moment this ranks as my favourite beach - just a few kilometres along the coast of the Costa de la Luz from Tarifa and the wind blown stretches of the Playa de los Lances populated by scores of kite surfers and their taut, sun-tanned torsos - nestled at the foot of the sand dunes of Bolonia curves a bay that avoids the extremes of the Atlantic surf.  Overlooking the stretch of fine sand and rolling waves sit the ancient stone ruins of Baelo Claudia, once an important Roman port and fish salting town.

I guess I do prefer the calm of the ruins, with their scudding sea breeze that tousles the rosemary bushes and scents the air as I walk ancient streets.  I enjoy sitting on the occasional, thoughtfully-provided bench watching a lizard warm itself in the morning sunlight and wonder how busy the forum might have been on an ordinary day during the times when the town must have bustled as ships arrived laden with goods to be dispersed towards Sevilla and the north of Iberia.  

The town was founded towards the end of the 2nd century BC as an important link with Tangiers and Rome's African conquests.  It was important enough to eventually have been granted the status of municipium by the Emperor Claudius and as you wander about the ruins you can find most of the important elements of Roman towns: a forum, where trading and political activity took place, an amphitheatre for culture and entertainment, remains of administrative buildings, a judicial building, the fish salting factory (which I am convinced still smell of salted fish!) town houses and the public baths.  The place is a brilliant example of what a typical Roman town would have been like.  There are the ruins of aqueducts that fed water to the town, and a sewer system - those Romans thought of everything - not to mention the remains of temples to numerous gods including the Egyptian goddess Isis - to cover all angles, I suppose.

The museum at the entrance to the ruins is very informative, and the major plus of all this is that if you show your EU  passport, entrance to all this incredible , in your face, "living" history is absolutely free - and it's only a few euros to those of you who don't have a passport from the EU.  Hours of happy learning by school kids could be had here, sketching by artists, scribblings by writers and snapping by photographers.  I wonder if it would be remotely possible to lay on a version of a Greek tragedy at the amphitheatre?  There's food for thought.

All good things come to an end, goes the cliche, and by the end of the sixth century the town had been abandoned, having fallen victim to an earthquake and later to numerous raids by Celtic and Barbary pirates.  But it is a splendid place, where history and nature meet, where you can savour a trace of your past in a beautiful place suffused with light, the distant chanting of the waves and the scent of wild herbs.

Eventually the sea tends to beckon and I take the short walk to the sand and do the usual lolling about in the waves.  But Baelo Claudia is an absolute joy.

Caen, France, 2009 - hire a bicycle

Not totally new, and not unknown in many other cities in Europe, but during a week in Caen last year, I encountered this scheme for hiring a bicycle and thought it was a great idea.  This week's hullabaloo about the Mayor of La Linea's "decongestion charge" - yes, it does sound like medication for an unpleasant physical condition - brought it all back to mind.

Now, I'm not saying it's an ideal way of getting about for everyone:  I have six kids and I wouldn't want to use one of these to get me to the supermarket for my weekly shop.  But surely for the many visitors or workers in Gibraltar, and La Linea for that matter, some of these set up around the border area, in the South District, and about the town would be perfect.  Perhaps also at the Eastern and Western sides too.  The idea is you leave your car at home for longer journeys, perhaps to one of the beaches in Spain or to the larger commercial centres there, and you pop a pound or euro coin in the slot and you borrow the bike to get you to work at the other end of the Rock, or to visit friends or whatever.  You then go to another bicycle hire point and clip your bike back in. At the end of the day you borrow one back.  Frequent users will have passes and special rates as will those who hire them all day.  The scheme could be run in conjunction with the local authority in La Linea so people can borrow one here and drop it off there and vice verse.  

The benefits - we'll reduce traffic and traffic pollution and become fitter.  There may even be some revenue for the local governments.  

Of course, this sort of thing is too beautifully simple for politicians both sides of the border, largely because it suits politicians of whatever persuasion to stir up problems rather than find practical solutions to them.  Alejandro Sanchez, despite his rhetoric, is politicising even further a sensitive situation.  If he wants to decongest his city from the blockages of lack of funding, he needs to use creative, imaginative, collaborative schemes to generate the wealth that being a close neighbour of a wealthy city brings.  By all means set up a congestion charge around the town - I for one, think this should be introduced in parts of Gibraltar anyway, our air is filthy with foreign traffic filling up with our cheap petrol, fags and booze - but don't do it to stir up trouble between the neighbours; there are enough ill-educated and malicious, bigoted boors on both sides of the notorious verja already doing that.

So back to bikes.  A little dangerous on such congested roads with no space to build bicycle lanes, I hear many a Gibraltarian complain.  So, how about taking a risk and introducing a no-car zone in the Town with notable exceptions for perhaps the disabled, or ambulances etc.?  What about circulating the traffic so some roads are only for bicycles?  Not easy, some people will grumble, but I expect politicians to have balls like bulls, not just forked tongues.  All it takes is a little courage, a lot of determination and a good pinch of imagination and charm.  Other much larger and busier cities have done it, so we can too.  

Leaders with cojones is what we need.  I wonder if any of them have cuernos like bulls too?

My daughter and I in 2008 - to prove that if I can do it, anyone can!

Dolmen del Pedra Gentil

It was an utterly unexpected sight.  Not that I had any preconception of what I might see.  By the time we had arrived at this particular height, deep and entirely lost in the hills of Montseny National Park in Catalunia, the sun was beginning to drop, the shadows were lengthening, the scent of the pines intoxicating, and the husband, busy at the wheel of a Ford Transit suited to the motorway and not to mountain tracks, was cursing profusely, and I was beginning to wonder if we might be stranded in the wilderness for the  night.  Unnerving to say the least, because the lower hills were shrouded in fingers of mist that crept in between the trees, and I had spent an pleasant hour earlier that day reading up on some of the local legends.  Add to that the fact that the local police force were heavily armed and scouring the forest for signs of ETA terrorists,  I was more than a little nervous.

The neolithic dolmen looks out over a thickly wooded valley and is reputed to have been the meeting place of witches since time immemorial.  Local legends include sightings of demonic creatures, and the raising of terrible thunderstorms by witches wanting to keep the uninitiated away from witnessing their diabolic and bloody rites.  It is also said that local witch-hunters would execute witches at this site.

If nothing else, the legends amplify the accepted history that these mysterious stone structures are associated with death and burial, and provide a good deal of material for local story-tellers.  I have to say, I felt just as spooked by the silence of the place as I was impressed by its antiquity, and the sheer beauty of the surrounding mountains.  We were lost when we found this, but it would have been well worth a trek out to see anyway.

The Queen Vic

I thought this was an amazing view of one of the world's largest liners - possibly the world's largest liner, I don't know, I'm not too up on things nautical - just outside my front room window.  I guess I'm pretty privileged with this view, although I'm not in a luxury flat but in one of the early shared ownership developments.

It's one of the joys of living in Gibraltar.  Such a small place, perhaps insignificant in many ways.  No G8 or G10, or however many there are, summits here I don't imagine.  No World Cup, few if any history-shattering events.  But the sun shines for most of the year.  The people that live here tend to be genuinely friendly, caring people.  Children can play outdoors pretty safely and the elderly tend to have family around them.  You don't have to pay for health care if you can't afford it, and a trip to the beach is only a walk away.

I may point out the flaws, and if I do so, it's because I want things to get better.  Gibraltarians deserve the best.  There's probably more talent, more skills, more facilities and more heart per square metre crammed onto this small mountain than anywhere else in Europe.  And that's why I feel rather more privileged than the fortunate few who can afford to lumber the ocean on a glorified tub, consuming resources and squandering money that might be better spent feeding a small African village for a few months than on sun oil and sea-sickness tablets.

So cheers to the Queen Vic for knocking home a few truths for me!

Where to walk?

Westview Park in its hey day - circa 2007

I tried to go for a walk this evening.  Summer is here: the days sizzle under the blaze of the ascendant sun, the sea glints an inviting green and all thoughts turn to how quickly you can leave work and get to the beach to throw yourself into the surf and cool off.  You look forward to the evenings, when sated by work and swimming and perhaps a meal and a glass of wine, you can walk in the cool of sundown, watch the stars rise over the bay and contemplate life.  


So where to?  Living on the edge of a small mountain surrounded by sea, a walk by the water's edge is probably the best bet, since the Alameda Gardens - glorious all year round - close at dusk, and the Nature Reserve too far, too dark and too uphill for me.  Sounds great? Almost.


I could take a wander along Herbert Miles Road, take in Catalan Bay, watch the waves lap along the edge of the Mamela, then go along as far as the road leads to where it is cut off from the entrance of the Dudley Ward Tunnel.  Problem is, that some of the road has no pavement and is prone to being attacked by boy racers in various types of motor vehicles all designed to crush walkers under their wheels.  Dangerous, then.


And to add to the problem, there is the risk of rock falls in the area.  The vegetation on the slopes above Both Worlds is lush as a result of the winter rains, but, as they dry out, their roots shrink, and the rocks they have undermined loosen.  No go there, then.


I could try Eastern Beach way, but then, negotiating the roadworks, even on foot, is hazardous at best and hardly makes for a picturesque walk.  The other way then, west side.


There is a wander over Ocean Village and the Marina, I suppose.  Great if I want to be surrounded by people, lights, revellers, gamblers and music.  Not so good if trying to work out a tricky bit of plotting for my next novel.  Ditto Queensway.  Rosia Road and Jumpers Bastion still struggle with traffic even at night, not to mention the ghastly smells and noise from the power station and dockyard, and the tunnel towards Rosia Bay and Europa Point at night downright scares me - still fast cars with more boy racers and the gathering of youngsters doing not very nice things, some with syringes, by the lighthouse - is frankly, off-putting.


The only option: Westview Park.  Okay, it used to close at dusk but even walking past it was pleasant, with the sound of the sea lapping on the rocks, the scent of the flowers drifting on the sea breeze, a polite greeting from the occasional dog-walker, and my thoughts to myself.  


No more.  All that is left is the rumble of the tugs, the destroyed wall, and the smell of the oily machinery that is dumping rocks into the bay, and the dust - layer after layer of white dust that you carry indoors on your feet or settles on the cars - on your shoulders if you should stand still to watch the tugs go by (you can barely see the sea).


There is work going on there.  I just hope the park will be finished soon and that the rock wall will accommodate a railing and a walkway right there, by the sea, that is ours, our patrimony.  The rest of Gibraltar's coastline has all but disappeared under construction equipment.  


How sad, that the best place for locals to go for a walk by the sea on a pleasant evening is just across a border to another land.

The works on their way - winter 2009 / 2010

Living Rough

This week, though it shocks me to say so, I find myself congratulating the Gibraltar Government. At last it has - albeit reluctantly - allowed itself to be dragged through the mire of equal opportunities and, tail dangling, into the twenty-first century, into an era, I still hope, of enlightenment as far as treating everyone with equal respect and acceptance. Finally, even if only after a struggle, it has stated that it will alter housing allocation policy to ensure that same sex couples have rights to joint tenancies. They have done this with a lot of middle-aged, middle-classed, middle-Christian bluster about intending to continue to support the traditional family of heterosexual couples with children and ensuring that same sex couples do not receive preferential treatment. I don't imagine for one moment same sex couples so much want preferential treatment as they want to be treated with the same rights to which they are entitled as other couples. So, the dear old Gibraltar Government - I can't help thinking of it as an ancient crone, hopefully on its last legs, reeling with decrepitude and reeking of decades of inactivity and incompetence - has managed to continue to offend while admitting it has been forced to amend its ways.

I was as startled as I was glad at reading the article in the Chronicle, simply to discover that the government had a housing policy. Only last week I called the housing department - Ministry of Housing, it's called, not unlike a well-known music venue and night club but unlike the club, well out of touch with reality - and asked for a copy of the housing strategy for the forthcoming years and copies of the allocations and homeless persons policies. I can't help it. I'm a housing officer of old and dreadfully nosy to boot. The most I managed to get were a few puzzled non-comments and a copy of a poorly-photocpied sheet to explain how to fill in the housing application form, which, on a quick read, gave me the feeling that helpful housing officers would do their utmost to find a way not to include me on the housing waiting list. I'm rather relieved, that, though in need of housing, that I am neither part of a same sex couple, nor Moroccan (working, born in Gibraltar or otherwise), because if that were the case, I get the feeling my chances of ever having a government roof over my head would be seriously scuppered.

And I guess I can afford to jest. I'm not homeless - yet. The tragedy is, that with no vision for housing, no proper financing, budgeting, planning, no respect for its tenants - the ordinary people of Gibraltar, most of whom are needy and most of whom are unlikely ever to be able to afford the only housing that is meaningfully being developed in Gib - no notion of how to administer an ageing housing stock, no real sense of how to manage its housing fairly, nor effectively, nor efficiently (those old buzz words from Thatcherite times that have yet to catch on here), the government is doing a desperate disservice to its own people.

For housing, like food, is a basic need. It is essential for the future of a community, to make sure that its stability is guaranteed by access to housing for all. That doesn't mean that housing cannot be carefully rationed in some way, or that the Government has an empty purse, but that it does as much as it can to help its electorate have decent opportunities, whatever their ethnic background, social class, physical or mental abilities, or sexual orientation. We need clear policies, long term commitment and a strategy to support families and households, whatever their composition, to contribute positively to society. And the only way they can do that is with a decent home that they can afford.

So, living rough in Gibraltar? In a town where some people proudly pronounce that no-one is poor? Maybe not in the Ethiopian famine sense. But there are street homeless huddled in corners. There are people forced to live in hostels that you would not be allowed to cage animals in. There are young families trying to bring up babies in flats wringing with damp, where the electricity can't always be used because water pours through along the cables, where the neighbours can be heard coughing and where they have to pay a large chunk of their hard-earned wages to a remote, uncaring landlord. And sadly, some of the last sentence includes government owned housing.

In a city where multi-millionnaires live a stone's throw from people who live in overcrowded, squalid conditions, that anyone should be living rough in Gibraltar, is a foul indictment of a succession terms in power of a government that has done little more than appeal to the very rich from wherever in the world, and neglect its own people.

A photograph of Turnbull's Lane, part of Gib's old town,

with some of the older properties seen in the background.

The guy in the photo was not a tramp living rough...

but he might have been.

Self congratulatory, or self delusion?

I've just read a comment on the BBC website on the self-congratulatory nature of the French love of their own culture. I want to make sure it's understood that I am a Francophile, and deeply regret the fact that this year, I am unlikely to visit France, currently my favourite place on the planet. But I have a cynical streak, and struggle to accept over-sentimentality and unnecessary hyperbole. Hence my inability to relate to many things thrown across the Atlantic from the US. But I couldn't help compare, as I browsed through the article, the similar attitude that exists in Gibraltar - also one of my favourite places on the planet.

In any healthy society, there is, or should be, as much analysis and criticism of government, society, institutions, corporations and so on, as there should be recognition and praise, where praise is due. While there are some, not very well-circulated and poorly printed publications which make a heroic attempt at putting events and actions into context and giving critical political analysis, the majority of the magazines based in Gibraltar - I name them not, but they are glossy and generally picked up at various locations for free - revel in a great deal of mutual back-slapping. Reading these, you tend to get the impression that government ministers (in those profile interviews designed to make them sound as beautiful as their airbrushed images) are hard-working committed individuals determined to serve the public that voted for them; that business men/women are all hugely competent, highly-regarded interntionally, well-heeled, altruistic individuals whose very existence enhances Gibraltar's life and status. Indeed, keep reading these, and nothing in Gibraltar is short of bloody marvellous.

Perhaps I'm a jaded old cynic. Life here is good for many. For most, it is better than in many places in the world. But all this nauseating obsequiousness that is such a feature of Gibraltarian public life can obscure the fact that there is a huge amount of progress and work to be done in order to really improve life in Gibraltar, for, no less than, the most important of people, the native Gibraltarians.

Let me cite a few examples: employment legislation is bordering on archaic and makes a mockery of government stated intentions to support the family; equal rights legislation is appallingly poor; the health service needs a desperate shake up to get it operating effectively; customer service in most organisations is bordering on deplorable; the streets are in poor state and filthy; our heritage sites and public places, viewed daily by tourists are neglected; there are not sufficient open air, free play areas for children; the waters and the air are none too clean; there are issues to look at such as child abuse, neglect of mentally ill people, elderly care, which needs upgrading, and let's not start on a discussion of the desperate need for a coherent housing strategy - the current one is lurking somewhere in the nineteenth century.

None of this means that Gibraltar is a dreadful place, not that we don't have some great things going for us. But we need good, old-fashioned cynicism and criticism, and for this to take place in the public arena. We also need public figures who don't hide inadequacies but who work towards improving things for all of us, and not just for the high net worth individuals the glossies love to gloat about. And all the time there isn't a really effective forum for public debate, I shall keep bleating here.