Tarifa and the Costa de la Luz

Keen for a bit of down time, we arrived on the coast just outside of Tarifa, together with the sun ☀️ - where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea at the Straits of Gibraltar. Fascinating to see the different shades of blue and the crashing waves of the Atlantic versus the calmness of the Mediterranean 😃


The winds are often strong here, so very popular for windsurfing and kite surfing. Again, fascinating to see the number of people parked up here, settled in for the winter - mainly Swiss, Germans and Dutch, obviously not needing to count 90 days! 😟 Took this opportunity to catch up on a few chores (mainly washing), explore a bit, and generally taking it easy.

The beaches are beautiful and stretch for miles - but water just a little too cold for swimming. Rubes loved the sand, but too frightened of the surf 🤣 



Ruby's ideal holiday!

Campsite was right on the beach, with lovely bar for sundowners, looking over to Africa and watching the amazing sunsets.

Beach bar at the campsite



The African sun 😂


Cycled into Tarifa one day - the old town quite interesting, being the southern most town in mainland Europe, and only 12km across the water from Morocco 🇲🇦 Day trips to Tangier are advertised everywhere. Once a really important trading port, it now seems to survive on tourism, mainly as a laid back windsurfing destination. A nice enough old town, but not a lot to really keep us there 😃

Tarifa old town


Tarifa old town


Apart from a climb up the mountain behind the campsite to see the interesting Buddha cave, and a wiz out on the bike for a bit more exploring by Dave, daily walks along the beach with Rubes, there’s not an awful lot more to report from our time here - just lovely to spend a bit of time in the sunshine and feel the warmth, and watch the evening sunsets 😃

The Buddha Cave

Costa de La Luz




Leaving Tarifa we headed a bit further west along the Costa de la Luz to Bolonia beach - famous for its enormous stretch of golden sand and it’s amazingly huge sand dune. Great to be able to park here on the edge of the beach for the night 👍


Bolonia is also famous for Baelo Claudia, an archeological ruin of an an ancient Roman town, perhaps one of the most intact we’ve ever seen! Once an important trading city with North Africa, through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar - the main industry being Tuma fishing and salting. Amazing to be able to wander round these ruins, see the main temple, the important aqueduct, thermal baths and amphitheater, and at no visitor charge for entry - seems quite incredible!


Temple at Baelo Claudia


Ampitheatre at Baelo Claudia


Aqueduct at Baelo Claudia


Further along the coast near Huelva we called in to see Las Carabelas, the reconstructed ships of Christopher Columbus on his 1492 European discovery of The Americas voyage - the port from which he set sail. Fascinating to see just how small the boats were, and how open to all the elements. 


Las Carabelas

Las Carabelas

Spent the night close by, a beautiful sunset again, as well as Palm trees full of ripe dates - a reminder of our closeness to Africa 😃


Camped here for the night 😀



Overall a lovely few days on the coast, relaxing and soaking up a bit of sun - a much needed rest after our busy time in Sevilla, and much more preferred by Rubes 😃









Comments

  1. Anonymous26 December 2022 at 07:39

    Feliz Navidad to the three of you. Love the pictures under the African sun ☀️ Fiona Andy Ailsa Bella xxxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jane27 December 2022 at 00:38

      And a merry Christmas to you all too 🎄🎄🎄

      Delete
    2. Erica Bradley3 January 2023 at 09:28

      Beautiful 😍 never thought about the contrasting oceans!

      Delete
    3. Jane3 January 2023 at 12:09

      No, and it was quite striking 🤣

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Galician Coast

Image
With the weather brightening up we spent the next couple of days exploring the coastal area around Cambados.  The Ria de Arousa (estuary) on which the town sits is famous for its seafood, and reportedly the best place to eat seafood in Spain - a perfect combination with the Albariño wine 😃 The estuary is dotted with dozens of small fishing boats, and interestingly dozens of women in waders with huge buckets and long poles scraping away at the rocks and seabed collecting clams. This was despite huge notices everywhere saying that collection of seafood is prohibited and anyone spotting such activity should contact the Police - seems nobody bothers about that round here 🤣 Prohibido Mariscar even painted on the rock! Clam collectors ignoring all notices 🤣 The Illa de Arousa is a lovely small island connected to the mainland via a huge low bridge. Our plans to explore the coast and the nature reserve which covers the bottom half of the island soon became thwarted when we were faced with
Read more

Hey, here we go…..🤣

Image
 We eventually set off on our winter adventure travelling through France, Spain and Portugal - me, Dave and Ruby 😃  It’s probably fair to say that we were feeling a mixture of emotions - certainly excitement about what was to come, but also some (mild) apprehension around the challenges of travel. The last couple of years since leaving the EU, and our restricted ability to move freely across Europe, has certainly brought with it some uncertainty, not knowing whether the stories we have read in the press, e.g. having to provide proof of accommodation and proof of financial security at some borders is actually real etc. Also mindful that we need to stick to a very precise timetable of 90 days in the EU, as heard recently of people who overstayed in France by a couple of days and ended up with a £1000 fine as well as a ban on future travel for the next 2 years! We definitely want to avoid that happening to us 😃  Anyway, very pleased to say that all went smoothly at Folkestone Eurotunnel
Read more

La Sierra de Grazalema

Image
Leaving Jerez we headed east to La Sierra de Grazalema, the first designated  Parque Natuaral within Andalucia where we based ourselves for the next week - not sure if we were brave or foolish knowing that the area is famous for being the rainiest place within Spain! A huge biosphere dominated by limestone mountains, verdant green valleys, and beautiful white villages - a great area for walking and mountain biking - both of us determined to take this opportunity to up our fitness levels and work off those excess calories from the festive season 🤣 We set out to explore! Arrived on New Years Eve, and as is typical within Spain, all bars and restaurants were buzzing late afternoon, but soon closed for the evening as people headed home to celebrate. We managed a couple of drinks out on the plaza, but also headed home early (not much different to being at home for us 🤣)  Grazalema is beautiful, and can see why it’s very popular. New Year's Eve - outside in the cold! Unfortunately we d
Read more