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Bolonia is a small isolated coastal village and fishing community some 11km north west of Tarifa. Windsurfers, kite-surfers and sunbathers alike enjoy its beautiful, fine golden sandy beaches.
The actual village is very popular in the summer months with the young surfers and travellers. Numerous hostels and bars have sprung up in a manner that appears to defy any planning control. The laid-back atmosphere makes up for this however. The fact that there is no through traffic in Bolonia adds to its tranquillity. Out of season the only company you are likely to find on the beach are the cows (as per the photo on the right)!
The village is located at the end of a 5km narrow road, which leaves the N340 coast road at km 70, climbing over a hill to give beautiful views of the bay. There is an official bird watching post here.
The road winds down to the coast and one should turn left at the bottom to enter the village (or carry straight on for the Roman ruins). Here you can find a number of beach bars.
At the end of the village the road comes to an end. Continue (south-east) on foot and you can visit a number of isolated beaches such as the Baños de Claudio beach where rock formations have made pools.
The Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia are just to the north of the present settlement.
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History and Baelo Claudia
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The town was founded at the end of the second century BC, and its origins and later development were intrinsically tied to trade with North Africa although the basic source of its wealth were the fish salting factories and the production of garum.
Its strongest epoch was under the rule of the Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) who bestowed the city with the category of Roman municipium, and because it was the administrative centre for the surrounding coastal zone at this time.
In the second half of the second century AD perhaps due to an earthquake that took place about this time and that may have destroyed the city, Baelo Claudia fell into economic decline, a situation that did not improve until the third century AD, due to the revival of exchange and commerce.
From then on, however, its fortunes gradually dwindled until it was abandoned in the VII century AD. There are other reasons that could explain the decline in the fortunes of Baelo Claudia, such as the economical and social crisis that engulfed the Roman Empire at that time allied to the growing insecurity in the area’s commercial traffic.
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Baelo Claudia is a perfect example of typical Roman urbanism. Designed along the cardus maximus essential coordinates (orientated from North to South), and the decumanus maximus (from East to West) at the crossing point of which the forum is located, along with the principal administrative, religious and commercial buildings.
The remains of all these structures still stand: the basilica, curia archives, the capitol temples complex dedicated to the triad of gods, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, the temple of Isis, and the macellum the colonnaded food market. This gives the visitor a global vision of urban life during that period.
As well as the aforementioned, the theatre, baths, aquaducts and the fishing industry zones are included within an area of slightly more than 13 hectares that is surrounded by the town wall, which was about 13 ft (4 mts) high, portions of which are still intact. Ramps, steps and terraces make the difficult terrain more manageable.
This area leads on to the more popular quarters that were located at the city’s highest point but that have not yet been excavated. Starting in 1917 French archaeologists excavated the main ruins and most of the objects found there are now in Paris. Only a statue of the Emperor Trajan found its way to the Archaeological Museum in Cádiz.
The French archaeologists re-erected some of the ancient columns so that the visitor is able to form an impression of what the Roman settlement of Baelo Claudia used to look like. The residential area, which reached right to the shore, also contained the industrial sites where fish were processed.
Here a large number of square and round sunken basins have been found, which, as the remains of the columns suggest, were originally under a roof. They contained 2000 year old fish bones, some of them still preserved, which indicate the original function of the basins: they were used for salting the fish and to make garum, a fish sauce with which the Romans spiced their food. Fish was also a major export product of the Spanish and North African coasts.
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Garum, a strong smelling and tasting sauce, was often mixed with herbs, spices, wines and even honey sometimes, to soften its robust flavour. In Roman cuisine it was the universal accompaniment at both the high and low classes’ tables, to the point that it seems to have been more of a culinary obsession than just a seasoning.
It was so common that the classical authors’ general supposition was that everyone knew how garum was prepared and so it never occurred to anyone to describe its appearance, texture, taste, smell or even a recipe for this “delicacy”.
Although it is not very clear what it consisted of exactly, there still seems to be a similar product made in Vietnam and known by the name ñuoc-man. This is basically the liquid extracted from oily fish that are left to rot in a barrel under the weight of a large stone.
Roman garum was often extracted too when salting anchovies and tuna, but the base of the most favoured variety, made in Cartagena, and known throughout the empire as garum sociorum, was made from the heads and innards of horse-mackerel and mackerel, macerated in salt and aromatic herbs.
Apicius used it in all his recipes, and the poet Martial wrote of it: "Accept this exquisite garum, a precious gift made with the first blood spilled from a living mackerel".
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Bolonia
