A Day Trip to Cartagena, Spain: History, Culture, Harbour Views and More
If you’re looking for a day out that gives you a bit of everything, Cartagena is well worth a trip. We had been to Cartagena once before to visit the Castillo de la Concepción Leonardo da Vinci exhibition but didn’t get a chance to look around the city centre.
We decided to spend a day exploring Cartagena, and it turned into a day where there was a good mixture of history, sightseeing, sea views and, eventually, a few hours relaxing on the Mediterranean and swimming in the sea.
We did spend the day rushing around a little to fit as much as we could into the time we had. There is plenty to see around the centre, and just walking around the city gives you a feel for how much history there is.
Then, later in the day, we swapped the streets for the sea and headed out on a catamaran along the Cartagena coastline.
Exploring Cartagena
We parked up by the harbour and started by looking for where we would get on the catamaran later in the day. What I didn’t realise was how much cool modern buildings there was along the harbour. As we walked along the first building you see is the Auditorium & Convention Center The Batel. This is has some great looking performances that I would really like to go back to see like the DJ Symphonic.
The next building along also looks like it would be a really interesting to visit which is the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology. From what I could work out From the outside is that it has a collection of underwater finds from ship wrecks that have been explored around Cartagena.
Again this was a very modern looking building from the outside that looks so good against the old buildings.
Further along to the end of the promenade we passed some very nice looking restaurants including the Restaurant 43 and shop. 43 is the liquor that was made locally in Cartagena back in 1946. It wasn’t open when we went passed but it was very early in the day.
Past this and a few other restaurants we made it to the pick up point. This is located at the end of the promenade near the town hall and the large bronze statue. Now we knew where we had to be it was time to head into the city centre which is just a short walk across the road.
Walking through the historic centre
You don’t have to look hard to to see the historic buildings just look up and you will start noticing the dates on when they was built. Its very impressive. The pavement we was on was polished marble and was spotlessly clean.
As we got deeper in to the city the streets opened up and and bars, cafes, and restaurants started to pop up. All authentic Spanish food at some fairly reasonable prices.
As we had kids with us we decided to stop of at a pizza place where we got a large slice of pizza, a drink and fries all for less than a McDonald’s which thankfully was no where to be seen. The pizzas was being freshly made out the back and and put on display.
Once we was done eating there was time to stop in a few shops and then pick up some snacks for the catamaran trip which was rapidly getting closer to arriving. So with supplies gotten we headed back to the harbour with time to spare and grab a few more pictures and wait for the catamaran to arrive.
I wont tell you about the boat trip I will let you read what I thought in the post here. All I will say is you will want to add it to your things to do list.
There is so much to do in the city there really wasn’t enough time to scratch the surface. but there every where you look you are reminded how old the city is. In our last trip we headed up to the Castillo de la Concepción. From the roof you are able to get some great views across the harbour and over the city. You will see some of the other attractions that you can visit when you are in the city.
Will I be coming back to Cartagena? Absently I really don’t feel I have scratched the surface on what I could see here.
There are buses to Cartagena from Torrevieja that can be booked in advance or at the Torrevieja bus station.
