We had a busy day when we actually did our planned trip to Carteia, an archaeological site down on the coast, on 2nd October… this was the trip we had thought we would do when we mentioned San Roque – as it turns out, we didn’t go into San Roque at all but had a lovely day all the same!
Like many areas in this fab country, Carteia has a long history and made for a really interesting way to spend a few hours… Knowing that we had to drive just over an hour to get there, and learning a lesson from our trip to the Caves the other day when we were asked if we had made a reservation, we thought we had better check this out before we left the mountains… the website asked us to reserve a place due to the group sizes being limited in order to protect the site… so we did that, asking to book on the midday “tour” (to give us plenty of time to get there…) – as it turned out, we were the only people on the tour and so had our guide (a lovely local girl who said her English was no good but was fantastic!) all to ourselves… Unbelievably, this site is smack bang in the middle of the oil refinery area on this part of the bay, which certainly gives you a surreal, in your face comparison between past & present! Here are some pics & info:
Carteia Archaeological site, near La Línea de la Concepción
In the 7th century BC, the Phoenicians first settled in Cerro del Prado, about 2 km northwest of Carteia. However, in the 4th century BC, their descendants, the Carthaginians or Punic, founded the current site known as Carteia.
When Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars in the 3rd century BC, the Romans established themselves here & significantly expanded the city.
The population born there, children of Hispanic mothers and Roman soldiers, were not recognised by Rome as citizens. Carteia sent a commission to Rome, requesting a solution to this problem and obtained the Senate’s concession of the title of Colonia Libertinorum Carteia in 171 BC, thus becoming the first Latin colony outside Italy.
The site, located in the bay of Gibraltar (or Bay of Algeciras if you’re Spanish!) and just a few meters from the beach of Guadarranque, includes a Punic wall, a Roman temple, a basilica-shaped pool, a thermal building, several Roman “domus” (dwellings), a salting factory and a large building from the time of Emperor Augustus. It also has several burial sites (necropolises dating to 6th century AD), a large Roman theatre (still being excavated) and a Rocadillo tower which acted as a 16th century coastal surveillance beacon ordered to be built by Philip II.
More recent history, there is also a bunker from World War II (with machine gun nest) which formed part of the 500 fortifications built on the Cadiz coast as a defence plan by the victors of the Civil War, against possible attacks from Gibraltar – which Spain formally ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713!
Our walk around Carteia gave us our first glimpse of the bay of Gibraltar (and the first time we’ve really seen the sea up close since we got the ferry from Dover!)… I’m not sure I would fancy swimming in this bay with all the freight ships / oil refinery etc! However, we also got our first sight of Morocco (just 14km away across the Straits of Gibraltar) and the Atlas Mountains… and, of course, the Rock of Gibraltar itself which rises 1398 feet from sea leaves… Pete was based on Gibraltar once for around 6 weeks for army adventure training (abseiling / climbing & sea canoeing) – thinks it’s changed a bit since then though!
Top two photos were taken from Carteia – the others were taken from the Atunara area of La Línea de la Concepción on the Mediterranean side!
The tour of Carteia lasted around an hour and a half – not bad for free (although we gave our guide €20) – after which we headed for the Mediterranean cost which took us through La Línea de la Concepción which is where the border between Spain and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar is.
Having parked up, we took a long walk along the sea front down towards the Rock where we passed by the “Fuerte de Santa Barbara” (now in ruin) which is a Fort was built by the Spanish in 1730 but destroyed in 1810 in a Spanish-British agreement as both sides feared Napoleon could conquer the fortified location and use the existing fortifications against them!
Walking along the coast in the Atunara area of La Línea de la Concepción – Bottom Right: Distant view of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco; Bottom Left: Roundabout with a big Tuna sculpture – this is the fishing area of the town and, apparently, the locals are known as “Atunareños”
A little further along, we found the perfect beach bar for a spot of lunch (squid for Pete & a prawn & tuna dish for me… all very nice but very filling) – we’re not used to eating a full meal in the middle of the day but fortunately, had a good walk back to walk it off!
One thing we noticed was how much hotter it was on the coast – about 32 degrees today! That’s about a 10 degree difference between where we are staying in the Mountains… good prep for our trip to India in December!
We had a lazy day yesterday (3rd October) – I didn’t wake up until gone 9am which is really unusual for me! I say lazy, but it was a day with a walk of two halves – one in the mid afternoon (down the hill from where we are staying) and then another in the evening when it was a bit cooler (this time up the hill!) – a swim and a bit of relaxing by the pool… lovely. Some pics from our walks:
Some pics from our walk(s) – Bottom left – pic of the cliff where we saw the vultures all roosting… you can maybe make them out if you squint a bit!
Top right: The troughs, fed by the local spring which gave Siete Pilas its name, this was a cattle watering place in times gone by… there’s s actually more than 7 troughs now as another 6 were added in more recent times…
Today (4th October) marks the end of our 3rd week in the mountains – that means in a weeks’ time, we will start our journey northward from here up, past Seville and onward to Merida… but that’s next week.
We thought we would take an early morning stroll up the hill today to see if we could see the vulture roost (photo above) a bit better… as it turned out, once we got to the top of the bit we usually go to, we decided to take an upward path which, in fairness, we thought only went around a couple of corners before reaching the top and allowing us to be able to peer over the top to the next valley… however, each corner we turned, there was a bit more hill to be done and, both being pretty stubborn when it comes to these things, we did not want to let the hill beat us so we carried on up and up and up and up… you get the picture?! 🤣
In the end, we went up another 550m from where we are staying reaching the giddy height of 1100m (that’s 3,600 feet!) on a path from our accommodation which was literally 3.5 miles up hill all the way to the top! Was it worth it? Oh yeh! Not only could we see the valley next to us, a different vulture roost, but also into the valley which we had driven along on our way here from Ronda… it was stunning…
Me and him on top of the world! Well, 3,600 feet anyway 🤣; Some of the outstanding views from today’s adventure…
Once we were at the top, you’d think the easiest thing would be to turn around and retrace our steps… however, anyone who knows us would know that we don’t always like to make things too easy and, having spotted another path up the mountain further along from where we went up (the other day and also about 2 miles before the top today!), we decided to go a bit cross country and meet up with that path… fortunately, no injuries apart from a few scratches from the thistles (every tree / bush or plant seems to have massive thorns – think it must be to keep the sheet & goats from munching them!) and a short stumble / scramble down and we were back on another official path – phew 😅… probably the best walk we’ve been on so far! I don’t think it’s one that we will repeat though as, being around 75 degrees today, it was a tad warm… although a little bit cooler up at 1100 metres!
Completely knackered now though so that’s all for now – hope all is well with you all – cuidados todos! 😘
All the gubbins… 
Leave a comment