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!