Do you remember when the Hotel Cotobro Playa was under construction, how ecologists and archaeologists tried to block the project because of the presence of a Roman well on the site? Many of the locals were against the project anyway, not least a Swedish gentleman who owned a villa with a beautiful view… until the hotel came along. Well – forgive the ambling preamble – the problem was solved when the hotel owners agreed to preserve the Roman well, giving free public access to it.

Now, a few years down the line and with the Roman well almost forgotten, the Town Hall has sent around a couple of maintenance workers to give this archeological site a good clean up.

According to the Town Hall archaeologist, the well and its building remains date back to a Roman villa from the 1st or 2nd Century AD. These remains are now situated in a cellar under the hotel front terrace, but can be viewed through a skylight.

A Town Hall press release says that the site was discovered during excavation work for the hotel, which is not true, however: on the site where the hotel now sits was a bungalow and in the gardens was a hut-like structure giving access to the well. One could imagine that when the Town Hall gave the building licence to the hotel that they conveniently ‘overlooked’ its existence, but they certainly knew about it beforehand, so it didn’t just miraculously emerge from beneath a JCB shovel.

But back to the cleaning up operation; the Councillor for Culture and Education, Olga Ruano, says that once the cleaning work is complete, the Town Hall will organized guided visits.

(News; Cotobro, Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)