travel cartagena For a slice of city life right on the Costa Cálida Down by check out Murcia’s second city - the spruced up port of Cartagena the waterfront docks Roman remains OR MOST Spaniards, the port of though was a curious 17th century crypt grafted Cartagena is synonymous with the navy. onto the remains of the wall, its dusty niches still After a superbly refreshing lunch of gazpacho F Its stern military presence can still be containing the odd crumbling femur or two. murciano, some wafer-thin cooked paletilla or felt in the huge 18th century ramparts, military Next port of call was the Refugio-Museo de la ham carved at the table, then drizzled with a hospital and Arsenal buildings. Guerra Civil or Air Raid Shelter Museum of the first class aceite de oliva and a couple of glasses Founded by Carthaginian general Hasdrubal Spanish Civil War. Now this was more like it. of the excellent Finca Omblancas Demay, we hit as Qart-Hadast or New Carthage around the Cartagena, due to its prime strategic location and the streets once again. My guide Pedro began year 229 BC, the city rapidly established itself military significance, was the victim of frequent to explain the project underway at the Roman as one of the principal trading ports of the air raids undertaken by Franco’s German and Theatre. Wherever you turn in Cartagena you will Mediterranean. Over the next 2000 or so years, the Italian allies. The local authorities were quick find teams of young archaeologists burrowing and city fell to successive waves of conquering Romans, to bore a huge network of bunkers below the sifting in cordoned off streets. Excavations in the Byzantines, Visigoths and Arabs, each of them ground, thereby affording the civilian population area near the Calle Mayor in the early 90’s revealed stamping their own identity, language and culture some form of protection from the ceaseless the city’s Roman Theatre, hitherto undiscovered. onto an already cosmopolitan city. bombardment that took place during the early The engaging work of these archaeologists is to My tour of Cartagena began at the Centro de years of the conflict. The very touching filmed peel back layer after layer of about 2500 years of Interpretación de la Muralla Púnica, or Punic Wall testimonies of survivors, excellent exhibits such as more or less continuous construction in order Experience. The building encloses and protects the propaganda ministry posters of the doomed to get down to the required level and hopefully the only remaining vestige of the Carthaginian republican government, the exercise books of reveal something historically worthwhile. One of walls. Gazing down on these few foundation stones sheltering school children still attending class the main problems encountered is the practice of through the reinforced glass floor, I found it quite through the chaos, the sirens, all help to conjure up cannibalisation employed by ancient builders, i.e. hard to visualise the mighty ramparts of the 3rd a sense of the drama and outright terror of those Byzantine chapuzas or cowboys using columns, century BC Qart-Hadast. 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When all this work the Liceo Casino due to his humble origins. is finished by around the year 2010, Cartagena The guy decided to wreak vengeance on these will be able to boast some of Europe’s richest stuffy chaps by acquiring the building next door, archaeological treasures. The jury is currently out demolishing it and erecting in its place a town on whether to demolish the disused and decrepit house so opulently extravagant that it not only Plaza de Toros Jose Ortega Cano in order to totally eclipsed the Liceo Casino but all the other get at the huge Roman Amphiteatre lying just buildings in the street as well. below its circus sands. A visit to the Casa de la Most of the town’s traditional eateries are in Fortuna and the Augusteum provides you with an this area. A popular haunt for both townsfolk and interesting glimpse into the sumptuous lives of visitor is the Heladería Reina Sofia on Calle Mayor. the city’s Roman patricians, lives dedicated to the Judging by King Juan Carlos’s signed portrait up daily pleasures of the senses and the wielding of on wall behind the bar, he too must have scoffed a influence. You’ll probably be left wondering where few tapas and sunk a few cañas on the terrace here it all went wrong. in his time. Art deco delights Sea views The previously mentioned Calle Mayor is the After a tramp round the Calle Mayor and symbolic heart of Cartagena’s casco historico or its adjoining streets it was time to visit the old town. In the 19th century, anybody who Castillo de la Concepción, a mediaeval fortress was anybody, owned a posh residence on this which is accessed from street level by means thoroughfare. The street is host to some fine of an enormous gleaming steel and glass lift. examples of the modernist style of architecture, There are some splendid panoramic views of prevalent at the turn of the century. The Liceo Cartagena from here and you can get a grasp Casino is absolutely stunning, but the story on the strategic importance of the city just by about how the neighbouring building got to be gazing below at the huge expanse of water that even more stunning is hilarious and indicative forms the harbour below. Rampart after rampart of how elitist Cartagena once was and probably protects the town in virtually every direction.