Day 2: Cartegena, Spain

I learned two lessons in Cartagena.  One was in general about cruising, and one was specific to Cartagena.  Lesson learned about cruising: don't sign up for an excursion the day after you get on the boat.  I was so tired by the time I got on the boat that I just wasn't ready to get up early in order to get off.  Lesson learned about Cartagena: downtown and the touristy area are walking distance from the port, so signing up for an excursion tour is not necessary.  We could have slept in, got off the boat on our own timetable, and just walked over to see the town.  But we didn't know that...and so we signed up to be guided all around town.  

We climbed onto a bus, which humorously drove us the five minute walk to town, taking the scenic route around town.  Apparently Cartagena produces a liquor that they put into a coffee drink there, so part of the excursion we paid for included a small sample bottle of this liquor.  Well...that was a waste of money.  We gave our sample to some guy on the tour who was asking where to buy more of it.  

I did learn alot from the tour guide that I probably wouldn't have had I just wandered around town.  Cartagena (pronounced "carta-hay-na") was founded by the Carthaginians (as in the town of Carthage in North Africa), and means "New Carthage."  It's the home port of the Spanish Navy, so there were things we saw about that, which was sort of fun.  Also, the first submarine that was ever made is now permanently on display in Cartagena, and I suppose is sort of the symbol of the city.  (I was a bad tourist and didn't take a picture of it.  Sorry.)

In the 1980's, the city built an open-air amphitheater, and then in 1987, discovered the Roman ruins of one just next to where they had just finished building their modern one.  Excavations are still going on in the city, and we got a tour of various sites.  In the photo below, you can see the ancient theatre is highlighted, and the modern one is just above it on the right.  The port is about one block over on the right.

I feel sort of bad about this, but Roman ruins have sort of become commonplace to me.  When you've been to Italy and lived in Southern Europe, you just get used to them.  So, unfortunately, this amphitheater was, well...normal.  I did learn alot, though, from the guide, about how people from the middle age would attempt to "recycle" materials, and so he pointed out how marble pillars from the Roman age were turned on their side to make floors in more modern buildings just next to the stage.

It was neat to see this ancient building right in the middle of a modern city, and to think about how it had just been discovered recently.  It made me wonder what else might be discovered under other buildings?

As the guide led us around the city, he explained stories about various buildings.  The red one on the right was some sort of club where only the superrich and elite could enter.  A man who had come into "new money" was not granted membership, nor was he allowed inside.  So he showed them up by building a more beautiful building twice the size of the red one...right next door to it.  The streets were so narrow that I couldn't get a picture of the two, but the white one really was pretty!

Cartagena has many Art Nouveau buildings, and so I just wandered around in a state of bliss taking in all the pretty pretty.  This is the Grand Hotel.

I really loved this building, but never did find out if it was an important building or not.  I kept staring at different parts of it: the balconies, the windows, the bay windows, the doors.

But the tour guide kept talking about this tree.  I didn't pay attention to that part, so I don't know why it was important.  Maybe the camelridingcowgirl paid attention to that part.

Next we went to the Punic Wall.  There was a modern wall outside the museum of the Punic wall that showed how tall and wide the original walls would have been, but again, as a bad tourist, I didn't think to take a picture of it.  (About 2/3 through the cruise, Papa G pointed out that I was an "amateur," because I'd only taken about 600 photos.)  Inside we saw some of the old wall.

There was also a room of catacombs that had nothing to do with the wall.  Each of the holes were tombs.

Skeletons had been painted on the walls, and you could still see bones and skulls in some of the tombs.

We were tired after the tour, and so we opted to skip the souvenir shopping and just head back to the boat.  I saw on the Daily Compass (a pamphlet we received each evening with the schedule and details about the following day) that there was a tour of the boat, so I headed off for that.  However, it wasn't a tour of cool things like the galley and the bridge but just a "get-to-know-the-passenger's-areas-of-the-boat."  As big as the boat is, I was glad for the tour...but I really wanted to see the behind the scenes parts.

I didn't realize that the theatre performance would be different than what I'd seen the night before, and I couldn't tolerate the juggler again, so I just headed off to get a good night's sleep before another big excursion day off the boat the next day.  I found out later that I missed one of the best performances of the entire trip.  Bummer.  All in all, I was glad that I got to see Cartagena, but don't know that I'd go out of my way to see the city.

I drifted off to sleep thinking of Hannibal and his elephants marching to Rome...since he got his start in Cartagena and bought his elephants with money from selling silver from the nearby mines.