The city of Cartagena is absolutely beautiful. It is surrounded by a rugged landscape of desert
and scrub covered hills with hilltop defenses embedded on each peak. From the harbor you can see five fortresses
in the distance. The architecture of the
city is a mix of neoclassical and baroque with intricately sculptured building
facades depicting everything from gargoyles to flowers to Saints. The streets all consist of marble tiles and
smoothly worn stone pavers.
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| So clean you want to take your shoes off. |
We went ashore at 0900 and strolled through town searching
for coffee and wifi. The trick is to
find a restaurant with a strong signal and a perfect café con leche. Our plan backfired when we kept losing the signal as we received our coffee and started to get online. So, two café con leche and a cappuccino later
we had a finished blog and a terrific buzz.
We suffer for our craft.
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| James dancing to the coffee song, "Good Coffee, Strong Coffee". |
The Museum Tetromano De Cartagena showcases a recently
discovered Roman Theater right in the middle of the
city. It is a wonderfully preserved site and the museum is a beautiful building by itself.
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| Roman Theater surrounded by the town |
Just down the main street is the Church of Santo Domingo built in 1642. There are two large domes designed to bring in enough direct light to make the altarpiece glitter. Each niche in the church depicts some part of the story of the Passion.
After a long walk, we made our way to a lovely little restaurant with outside seating and had a pan of seafood paella and a couple of local beers.
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| Serving since 1932 |
It was back to the ship for another sea day before our next stop in Civitavecchia, Italy and the start of our next cruise. Our position in Cartagena was 37.62 N, 1.00 W. The weather was sunny 72 degrees.
Cheers,
P&J
Cheers,
P&J