Not so wild swimming

I spotted it in small print on the map - Baños de la Hedionda - and read that it was a bend in the Manilva River where sulphur springs bubbled up and caused the ancient Romans to build therapeutic baths to help heal skin conditions. And so I set off to find this ancient spa, expecting to find some river pools like I've seen in other locations this summer. I had to walk about half a kilometre from where I parked the car, and I knew when I was getting close - not only because I occasionally passed people walking back uphill with towels wrapped around them, but also because the sulphurous, slightly rotten-egg smell was soon noticeable.

Soon I arrived at a stretch of slightly cloudy river with shallow pools. A few people were dipping themselves in the water, and some others had smeared their bodies with thick grey mud. (But the mud fans were obviously foreigners who didn't understand Spanish and couldn't read the large sign saying that the mud had no beneficial properties whatsoever!)

I cooled off a bit in one of the pools (not deep enough for wild swimming, but okay for lying down and letting your body take in the "healing" effects of the sulphur. (The smell wasn't noticeable any more.) Then, before heading back to the car, I thought I'd look inside the old Roman bath house in case there was anything worth seeing. To my amazement, I found that ancient stone steps (as well as a set of modern metal ones) led down to deep underground pools, too deep to stand, where you could tread water in the turquoise waters beneath the archways of the old bath house. A unique experience, and one I was glad to have discovered. A touch of history combined with some pseudo wild swimming.

My last port of call, however, was going to be a well known wild swimming destination that I'd wanted to see for some time. Read on in the post below for more about that.