Las Medulas: Roman Strip Mining

We proceeded on, breaking camp on Friday the 16th, heading past Valenca across the river to Tui and Spain and then to old friend O Porrino, for groceries and recharging our Spanish simcards and mifi. And from there we drove further east, into the mountains, to Monforte de Lemos and its nice aire on the river. And from there, next day, we drove on to Las Medulas, yet another World Heritage site, one of many in Spain, and the largest of Rome's gold mining undertakings. The day was warm, then hot, but we persevered.

At the aire in Monforte de Lemos

Nice view

But too hot to visit

Las Medulas is an extensive site, as one might expect of strip mining operations

Yeah, the Camino Santiago (Frances) passes through here;
it will be days before we're off it; happily, not on foot anymore,
however

Nice life-sized dioramas in the museum; memo to self: whatever you do in the
next life, do not be a Roman slave

Artifacts

Helpful model: essentially it was placer mining...they tunneled into the soft rock,
flooded the tunnels until the mountain burst, then picked through the detritus;
"mountain ruining" they called it; the big achievement was the hydraulic
engineering, that is, getting the water into the tunnels; the Romans were good at
moving water

Sluices also a  major part of it

At the resto next to the museum; "hail, Caesar!" "hail, yes!" (favorite line from
junior high school; I played Cassius in the school play; no one would accuse me
now of having a lean and hungry look; OK, maybe hungry)

Major ruined mountain

For some reason, the camera again switched on to Etkachrome
mode

Ruined landcaped

Exposed tunnels

More ruined landscape

Tunnel opening overlook

Click to enlarge and read Pliny the Elder's description of all this, which is
actually interesting

We might have gone on a tunnel tour, but it would have been an hour's wait
in the heat

So I got one for the road and we proceeded on; note the composition of the rock...
basically mud with nuggets of this and that, including, once, some gold

Vicki was particularly impressed with the overhanging buildings in one of the
villages, which caused us to swing wide on the 12% grade

We proceeded on, dreaming of shade