Cartagena, Spain (500 Namesakes Around the World)

Cartagena was prized for its harbor.  It is one of the best in the Mediterranean Sea, and has been utilized as a military installation and a trade port through the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Moors, and the Spaniards.  In the past 25 years, the port has been revitalized and is attracting the tourist trade these days including cruise ships much bigger than the Ponant boat we arrived on.  

There's plenty to see and do.  There's an amazing Roman Amphitheater which has been excavated as an archeological site which can not only be visited and seen, but climbed all over.  It was interesting to see how the seats show what class of Romans sat where.  I read someplace the other day that the 'pecking order' we all deal with in human herds started over 10,000 years ago.  Social order and social climbing is way older than we'd like to believe.  

The gray tower is the elevator getting us to the top of the hill

At the top of the hill was a beautiful park.  It was on one of the hills that surround the harbor.  We were able to look down on the amphitheater as well as peek in on the gladiator area uncovered underneath the city's bull ring.  It's still being excavated.  

Stage to the right, seats to the left

This was a performance theater in Roman times.  In the picture above, it's easy to see how it functioned.  There was also a 'cover' over the stage held up by Ionic columns of marble.  The cover is long gone, but some of the columns remain.  There are plenty of pictures in the link below.

We hiked around the park for awhile, heading to the top which gave a 360 degree view of the city below including the Roman amphitheater we just toured.

Cartagena is also the home of the Spanish Navy.  There's a Memorial to the bravery of the Spanish who died in the Spanish/American war in the late 1890s.  Spain lost all its remaining territories in the 'new world' as well as the Pilipino Islands in that war.  Today, there's still debate as to how it actually started.  "Remember the Maine" was the initial rallying cry for war in the United States although the sinking of the battleship Maine has never been conclusively proven to originate with the Spanish.      

There are bronze statues honoring the soldier and sailors who fought in the war
around the sides of the monument

Cartagena is built around a series of plazas like you find in the Americas wherever the Spanish first conquered.  It's an attractive city which has fairly successfully redirected its graffiti artists to be adjunct decorations fresco style to the great Roman ruins of the city.  This one is across from the Roman Amphitheater.

 

When you're in a port for a day, you barely smell the icing.  At least I got a T-shirt!

The best part are the pictures.  Hopefully, you'll enjoy a set pix w/o formal paintings.

Cartagena, Spain