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.