Today’s outing is to the Ponte del Diablo. Sounds dramatic – demonic, right?

It’s actually a Roman aqueduct about five minutes by bus from Tarragona.

I don’t think Alice Roberts of Channel 4 fame mentioned it. It’s only two tier and not as long as the Pont du Gard in France. It is, however, complete – and you can walk from one side to the other along the narrow rill that carried the water into the ancient Roman city.

I left after a very late breakfast. I can imagine my mother saying “and what time do you call this?!”

Then I made a visit to the Spar to gather provisions for my little expedition.

I am tending to use my phone to pay for things, but sometimes it can be a pain in the arse. First I have to unlock it. Then I have to say whether I want to pay euros or pounds. All while people are waiting behind me in the bus queue. Probably thinking “stupid foreigner”. At least I’m not spending time trying to recognise unfamiliar coins and notes.

But it wasn’t a long ride, and the bus was cooler than outside.

The Puente is in a beautiful nature reserve centred around the aqueduct and the dry river bed. It’s so peaceful. I see plants that we are only now, thanks to climate change, able to grow easily in the UK. Some are still limited to houseplants.

I’m not saying that climate change is in any way good: the Mediterranean has become a tinderbox.

I walked uphill a little along a dusty trail, seeing little lizards scamper away. The little buggers won’t stop for a selfie with me!

The structure slowly emerged from the woodland. It is quite stunning. The equal span of each double archway so pleasing to my eye.

I walked around one end of the bridge, admiring the view, before I crossed the very narrow walkway, which once took water to the city of Tarragona. The parapets are high and it’s very safe. The view into the woodland was lovely.

I had seen the aqueducts leading into the city of Rome when I was there many years ago. They are stunning. But I’d never seen one close enough to study the way it was put together, the beautiful and functional symmetry, and the fact that the watercourse would have been descending by the same even drop for the entire length of the supply.

The thing with Roman engineering is that if the structures are not dismantled, then, with minimal maintenance, they will last millennia.

When you think that the life expectancy of the average Roman was so much less than ours, isn’t it amazing that they had such forward thinking in their planning?

Afterwards, I walked under the arches. And there, in the dry river bed in the shade of Roman engineering, I dug out my very own Rosetta Stone: El Hobbit!

I seem to be reading a chapter a day. To do more would be too exhausting – and I know that I would stop comprehending what I read. There are chunks of it I know very well indeed, and I can guess the some of words that I don’t know, which is just as well because my Spanish to English dictionary didn’t always know either. There are words that I met time and again and will not go into my brain so that I have to look them up every time.

Reading forces me to stop, and find somewhere to sit.

As does lunch.

I walked further up the valley and find a shady spot for another round of bread and sweaty cheese.

I can see a rabbit and hear birds singing. Sadly, there is always the background hum of traffic and the occasional clackity-clack of a train in the distance. There are very few people in the park, so it’s quite sore the before I see another human. However, the loudest noise is that of crickets. From the sound of it, they just be as big as my foot!

When I stopped to have some water, a tiny praying mantis landed on my bag. I have never seen one in the wild before, and if it hadn’t have made a personal visit, I would never have noticed it. I had no idea such things live in Spain! I haven’t seen or heard any green parrots, so I wonder if the Barcelona colony was founded in the same way as the London one?

The only thing that worried me slightly was getting back to Tarragona. Firstly, I went to the wrong road (the park has more than one entrance). Then, when I found where I’d got off there was only the single bus shelter.

Google wanted me to walk for miles along the motorway to catch the next bus, which really didn’t make sense. Why would the otherwise sensible Spanish authorities pop a bus stop next to a country park and not be ready to take folks home afterwards?

After a little more research, I confirmed that I was in the right place and that it was a circular route and ignored Google.

There followed a cool trip back to Tarragona, where coffee and a cake we’re waiting for me.

While I wondered on the ancient monumental stone structure I’d seen, and my tiny green visitor.