The weather was hot today and the air was very humid which gave everything a sort of hazy look. We took the toll road down to Cartagena because our thought was that we'd get there quickly and after visiting the city, then we'd slowly make our way back up along the coast.
Cartagena is on the coast so one of the first things we saw when we got into the city was the port of Cartagena. Then we tried our best to find a tourist information center so we could get a city map and we kept seeing the signs for the tourist office but then the signs would disappear and we'd find ourselves in the middle of the old section of town where the streets turn into one way or pedestrian or some crazy thing. We went round and round in circles trying to find either the tourist info place and/or at least a place to PARK so that we could maybe walk and find the place.
Finally, after driving the same streets over and over again and not finding the tourist office and also not being able to find a parking spot, we decided to look for an underground garage. Well, the underground garage that Guillermo picked to park at turned out to be PERFECT because it was right by the tourist office (no sign anywhere letting you know that it was there) and it was close to some of the bigger attractions in Cartagena. We couldn't believe our good luck finally kicked in. So, we walked to the tourist office, got a map and found out that since it was Monday, most tourist places were closed. But they also told us that even though we wouldn't be able to go inside any museum or castle or whatever, we could still walk around them and see things from the outside. That was good enough for us. We stopped first at a cafe for a cold drink and ice cream which was sorely needed at that point because it was such a hot day!
Then these are some things we saw after while taking a walk around the area.
Ruins of an old amphitheater and in the background, there is that laundry hanging from so high up!
Then we walked up as far as we could to where the castle of Cartagena is, but of course it was closed. So, we just looked around from an observation deck up there.
The amphitheater from up above.
The port of Cartagena. This has been an important naval base for Spain since the 16th century.
Check out that fortress with walls going all across that hill!
There are little hills scattered around the city with a lot of them having some type of ruin on them.
And yet another hill with something on top
The old mixed in with the new.
This one was WAY in the distance.
In the upper center there, where it looks like a crater, that is a BIG archaeological site.
After walking back from the castle and amphitheater area, we walked a little around the old section of Cartagena. We just had to snap a picture of Guillermo standing right here. Has to be owned by some extremely distant relative.
There are scenes like this all OVER the place. Old buildings with satellite dishes. This one caught my eye because of the two pairs of shoes hanging underneath the dish.
Then we found a nice little place on an outside terrace to have lunch. We just had a few tapas: little squids, mussels and potatoes with a spicy sauce. With a beer and sangria!
We took the slow road back to the house. On the way, we saw these huge piles of salt near the Santa Pola salt flats.
This picture shows the side where they've been scooping out salt to deliver to somewhere.
And near where we were taking the pictures of the salt, were these weird things. So, I just had to take a picture of one. It is called a Casamatas. Long time ago, men used to get in those and use weapons through those openings.
We are glad we took the time to visit Cartagena. It was extremely interesting and again, makes us wish that we could go back to the past for just 5 minutes at least so that we could experience the soul of the place and see how things really were.
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