Bolonia Roman ruins by the dunes
— a Roman town the wind keeps trying to bury.
Not only on a wall.
Bolonia Roman ruins by the dunes, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Baelo Claudia stands on a strip of Atlantic beach in the Cádiz province, with a thirty-metre sand dune climbing the pine slope behind it. The forum columns, the theatre, and the salting vats for garum all face the water. On clear afternoons the coast of Morocco shows across the strait. The wind comes hard off the levante here, and the dune moves a little every year. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Bolonia is a small bay in the municipality of Tarifa, on Spain's southernmost Atlantic shore, inside the Parque Natural del Estrecho. The Roman town of Baelo Claudia was founded in the second century BC and reached its peak in the first century AD under Claudius, who granted it municipium status. It thrived on tuna fishing and on the production of garum, the fermented fish sauce shipped across the empire. An earthquake in the third century, and Berber raids later, ended the town. The site is roughly 22 km west of Tarifa.
What stands is unusually complete: a paved forum, the basilica with its replica of the colossal statue of Trajan, a small theatre cut into the slope, the capitolium temples to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the row of fish-salting vats by the beach where garum was made. Most of the masonry is local sandstone, weathered to a warm honey colour. The original statue of Trajan, found here in the 1960s, is held in the Museum of Cádiz; the replica on site keeps the basilica readable.
The Conjunto Arqueológico de Baelo Claudia sits directly behind Playa de Bolonia and is reached by car down the CA-8202 from the N-340; there is no train. Hours run roughly 09:00 to 18:00 in winter and 09:00 to 21:00 in summer, closed Mondays; admission is free for EU residents. The Duna de Bolonia, a protected dune around thirty metres tall climbing the pines at the west end of the beach, is a short walk along the sand. The town of Tarifa is twenty minutes east by road.
