Playa de Bolonia

Bolonia is on the Costa de la Luz in Andalusia, between Tarifa and Zahara de los Atunes, facing the Atlantic just west of the Strait of Gibraltar. Africa is visible across the water, fourteen kilometres away at the strait's narrowest.

Two things share the beach. A mobile dune around thirty metres high sits at the northern end, declared a natural monument and slowly moving inland into the pine behind it. At the southern end stand the ruins of Baelo Claudia, a Roman town founded in the second century BC that made its money from tuna and from garum, the fermented fish sauce that Rome consumed in quantity; the forum, theatre, basilica and the salting vats are all excavated and open.

The wind is the region's defining feature. The levante blows hard from the east through much of the summer, which is why Tarifa a few kilometres south is one of Europe's principal kitesurfing centres and why Bolonia can be unusable on a bad day. The Atlantic water is cold, cleaner than the Mediterranean side, and the beach is broad pale sand. The garum produced at Baelo Claudia was shipped across the empire, and the salting vats at the site are among the best preserved anywhere in the Roman world.

Development is a small village with a handful of restaurants and no resort. The area is within the Estrecho Natural Park and building is constrained. Zahara de los Atunes and Los Caños de Meca further north are the other Costa de la Luz beaches, and Tarifa's Valdevaqueros is where the kitesurfing concentrates.

A thirty-metre dune, a Roman town that made its money from fish sauce, and Africa fourteen kilometres away on a clear day. The levante blows hard enough to end the visit and Tarifa down the road turned that into an industry. The Atlantic here is cold and cleaner than the Mediterranean an hour east.