Mr Papa Gives His Perspective on Cartagena Feature Article Discussion Forum

Yesterday, we made a port of call in Cartagena, Spain. It’s a relatively small coastal Spanish town that dates back to before the Romans and Carthaginians. We were not really sure what there was to do in town, but we had decided to just walk around town and take it in. The weather on this cruise, except for the heavy rain in Livorno/La Spezia, has been pretty nice, but cool around 60 degrees, with a high around 70. I ate a nice breakfast on the stern of the ship and watched our approach into the Spanish town in a harbor protected by a couple of break walls which made for some interesting maneuvering for our large boat. The town is also home of a Spanish Naval base, so there were several destroyer class ships in port plus even one Spanish submarine though it was quite small compared to the US submarines I have seen.

After our late docking (complete about 10:00 am), Suzanne and I went into town to scout around while the kids stayed behind at the fun factory. Suzanne and our daughter had plans to go back into town after lunch for some shopping.

I was pleasantly surprised by the town. It was very clean and friendly with some interesting buildings and architecture. Suzanne did a bit of shopping and picked up an authentic, though used, Flamenco dress and some professional castanets for her dancing. She was pretty excited as …