Kiwi Roaming

Almería has a few really interesting sites with amazing heritage, as I mentioned the EU have been pumping money into restoration there and we can see it will be fantastic to visit again in 10 years or so once more is completed and the new railway link in place.

El Cable Ingles – On our first evening in Almería we saw people walking on a pier like structure near the port so decided to venture over there to check it out. Turned out it was a structure called El Cable Ingles which was built by the Brits when they were there pillaging iron ore for a time and built this roll-on-roll-off train enabled loading pier. It was designed in the style of Eiffel and has been turned into a wonderful walking platform, probably about 1km long where people go to look at the view and in our case, watch the sunset.

It’s quite an awesome piece of architecture and the productivity gains it created – reducing ship loading from 8-10 days down to 10 hours – are impressive. Nice it can now be used by the public too.

Alcazaba of Almería – The real reason we came to Almería was to visit this ancient fortified city high on the hill above the current city. Why it’s so fascinating is so much is still accessible and its history. Initially commissioned by the Emir of Córdoba in the early 900’s to defend the Muslim community from pirates, then extended by Taifa King in the 11th century – creating two distinct parts to the massive construction. Then the Christians arrived in 1489 and built on a whole new castle structure alongside the Muslim fortifications. It has had a hard life, attacked by pirates for centuries, damaged significantly by earthquakes, bombed by the Nazi’s in the Spanish civil war and left to ruin for years.

We booked an English speaking tour at 10:30am and arrived to find we were the only people on this tour – no tourists doh! our guide was Argentinian and has lived in Spain for years. She is very passionate about the future of Almería and the history of the Alcazaba. She told us all about the two massive excavation programmes that have taken place there, the first about 100 years ago which resulted in capping much of the site with concrete. The next one in the 2010’s which unearthed things like Roman ruins below the Muslim structures and evidence of reuse of Roman pillars – awesome.

The most preserved part of the structure, a beautiful garden with fountains and ponds, was used as Dorne in Game of Thrones (above) – I haven’t mentioned but another industry in Almería is Spaghetti Westerns which are filmed in the desert at one of 4 film sites. Daenerys and her Dothraki followers scenes were also out in the desert there too.

From the Alcazaba you can see the slum, the pens below where the goats are farmed and over to the Castillo de San Cristóbal (above left) which we visited the next day. Unlike other sites we have visited there were very few people there and it was free to access. It would have been boring without a guide to be honest so pleased we paid the $40 for this experience.

Castillo de San Cristóbal – originally built as a further fortification by the Muslims in the 10th century with a main wall joined up with the Alcazaba. Then the Christians came and took the fortress in 1147 and added castle like towers. The wall and some towers are pretty much all that remains but there are new structures in place to help you get up there made from fantastic pink rock that is sourced locally (I was fascinated) and a massive statue of Jesus Christ that you can see from kms away.

We walked through the wall and into the countryside, it’s marked on the map as a hiking area and we found that quite surprising. It’s basically desert, only tussocks and some very hardy bushes with sand and lime like dirt on the ground. It was soooo hot out there and if you did go hiking you would need to take serious precautions as there was no shade whatsoever. Fascinating to have a wee relatively safe explore.

John Lennon – on our way to the Castillo de San Cristóbal I made Steve come and say hi to John Lennon. The plaque on the statue of him says he wrote Strawberry Fields forever while staying in Almería in August 1966.