Cartegena

Watching the sunrise over Spain – about 7.20am… as we sail down to Cartegena…

As we docked at Cartagena you can see the forts on the surrounding hills

We got off to do a four hour (mainly walking) tour of the old city in the afternoon… temperature was 39C! This was a view of the ship as we left the port and set off to see the sights

There is a lot of the original city walls still standing

After a quick bus trip around the city to give us the main views and a good overall perspective of the defences of the city, we got out and started our walk up to the central fort – Castle Concepion. On the way up we could see the old bullfighting ring which is built on top of a Roman theatre.

Beautiful old trees everywhere and huge old tree roots..

An old plaque with an image of the castle

The city was founded back in 227 BC after the Carthaginians sought a few place to live after being defeated by the Romans in the first Punic war. They only held it for 20 years and then the Romans conquered it – holding it for the next 500 years. It was a important city in the Roman area. It was later conquered by the Moors and then later became Christian. (Fascinating history but not enough time to write it all)

From the fort/castle you can see out in every direction for miles – this is the view out over the newer part of Cartagena. In the other direction you can see out to the ocean.

The walls of the castle..

This model shows the old city walls and the main buildings to defend the city – the fort we are in is the biggest building in the centre

Knights clothing, the people were quite small..

Down in the lower part of the fort, these windows are set into walls about 1.5 metres wide.

Lots of beautiful old documents on display…

This is the original document box that held all important documents for the city and was kept inside the fort.

Down below you can see the Roman amphitheater – designed to hold about 7000 people. After this we walked down to this area near the main city centre.

The main city area is just beautiful, and like Barcelona, filled with beautiful old buildings every where you look.. this is the main square

We had a nice time walking through the streets for some time on our own…

we stopped for a while and had a coffee and a gelato. It was lovely sitting here, a nice cool breeze blows up the streets between the buildings and nearby was a couple of men playing the piano accordion and saxophone…

A lot of the buildings have paintings and religious icons on them…

Just near the building above are the old Roman baths which are being restored

more huge old trees…

The roads are slate and shared between pedestrians, cars, food stalls – everyone is very patient on the roads – so much better than in Australia – we really could learn a lot from the drivers in Spain.