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.

Community cohesion confirmed

Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned

I had a delightful morning. The weather was perfect: sunshine with just enough of a breeze to take the edge off the heat, and just to complete the idyll, the kids were at school, the dog asleep indoors, and the coffee at the Piazza, (el martillo to seniors, Sir John Mackintosh Square to many non-Gibraltarians) strong and smooth. While I dipped churros into a small mound of sugar on the edge of my plate, I watched dozens of people meander along Main Street having celebrated the confirmation into local Catholicism of their children.

I'm not usually a fan of religious festivals and avoided the sinister Spanish Easter processions that smack too much of paganism, idolatry and hypocricy for my liking, and the celebrations for the end of Our Lady of Europa jubilee year. But, hot on the heels of the first Holy Communion celebrations that saw pre-pubescent girls dressed as brides and pre-pubescent boys flaunt their innocence also in white, along with gifts and parties and lots of flash photography, this religious celebration, caught in Main Street, brought home to me just how beautifully the different religious traditions all relate to each other in Gibraltar.

While I drank the coffee - and I like it to still be steaming hot when I get to the bottom of the cup, so I don't hang around - I watched the kids that had been confirmed into the Roman Catholic church excitedly chatter to their large and extended families, and these exchanged greetings with passing friends, some of whom wore the kappel of Judaism, while others, in jallabah's or hijabs or kofi's, smiled and kissed their congratulations as they headed for Friday prayers at the mosque.

Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque

While Gibraltar's Roman Catholicism is still the predominant religious tradition that still governs the calendar for schools and holidays, and continues to exert a stupefying influence on social and political modernisation, the way that people are able to understand, accept and enjoy each other's traditions is as refreshing as it is wonderful. While in some places overt displays of faith are played down so as not to cause offence to people of other religious persuasions, in this tiny city, people can worship openly and are respected for doing so.

One of Gibraltar's synagogues

I'm not sure why it should be like this in Gibraltar and not so in many other parts of Europe, or, indeed, the globe. Perhaps it is that religion itself allows for a spiritual growth that opens up an understanding of the spiritual needs of others. But I'm not so that this is the case. I prefer to think that in such a small place as Gib, where the memories of the isolation of being locked into the Rock are still so fresh and only one generation old, we all had to get on with each other, we needed to learn about each other's ways, accept them, understand them and live with them. It made life easier, and in these days of continuing religious wars, the religious co-existence in Gibraltar is exemplary.