By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m standing on a wobbly iron bridge bolted to the cliffs of Cuenca. They say it’s built in the Eiffel style, but when you step out onto it, it feels more Indiana Jones than Paris. The metal creaks underfoot. Hundreds of feet below, a river snakes through a canyon so deep you can hear it before you see it. Thick brush hides the water, but nothing hides the […]

By Max Milano (Travel Writer) I, like most tourists and expats, must’ve driven past Sagunto a hundred times. Always between Valencia and Barcelona. Always in a rush. The AP-7 skirts along the Mediterranean, passing citrus groves, factory outlets, beach towns with nondescript condos, and even a Roman aqueduct. But then there’s that hill, the one crowned by an ancient fortress that seems to grow out of the stone itself. I never stopped. Most tourists don’t. […]

By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) It’s late at night, and darkness engulfs us as I drive southbound on Highway AP-7 between Barcelona and Tarragona. I am thinking of the Roman Empire because Highway AP-7 follows the ancient Roman road, the Via Augusta, which once linked Cadiz with Rome. Traffic is light, but mosquitoes swarm the car, challenging visibility. Our windshield wiper fluid is exhausted, leaving smeared bugs obstructing the view. Every few kilometers, […]

By Max Milano (Travel Writer) In the quiet suburb of Lliria, just outside Valencia, Spain, I find myself standing beneath an apartment building, where a grand subterranean space was once meant to be a parking lot for the luxury apartments above. But a builder’s shovel struck more than just rock; it hit a Roman tombstone. The city’s swift intervention preserved the site, at the cost of the building losing its underground parking. This is a […]

By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m deep inside the ruins of the Roman Forum in Cartagena, Spain. This was New Carthage (Carthago Nova). The sight of 2000-year-old amphorae, mosaics, and Corinthian columns is mind-blowing. Ancient lewd graffiti on the walls reflect the phallocratic obsessions of the average classical Roman. Two stories above us, in the modern city, a Spanish waiter yells at someone in an even more lewd tone, invoking the same phalluses […]