Cartagena Tips
Things to Do in Cartagena
One of the more underrated cities in Spain is Cartagena. A vivid and proud place. And if you’re going, here are some touristy ideas to get the run of the place in a few days.
Visit the Mercado — the Mercado de Santa Florentina — a riot of colour, sound and smell. It is everything you want from a Mediterranean marketplace in an ancient city with links to North Africa and the farther reaches of Spain. And stroll Calle Mayor and round to Calle Jara for a bite to eat, tapas place everywhere… go to whichever you think looks good. Paella is Spanish. Caldero is what a Cartgenero will eat.
You must visit the Teatro Romano de Cartagena, the Roman amphitheatre. Cartagena sits at a fascinating historical crossroads: Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Imperial Spain. It is remarkable to think that this vast theatre lay lost for nearly 2,000 years.
Walk the port — now a cruise ship stop — but still an extraordinary place to get a sense of the landscape that shaped the city. It’s a fun place around Christmas. The Spanish do Christmas so well…
Enjoy Cartagena’s street art. There is wonderful graffiti and more formal public work, especially around the Roman Forum area. It is a lovely place to walk. The Forum itself is quietly astonishing — these slightly underloved Roman remains are as fine and as interesting as any you will find, yet they sit right in the middle of town.
It is not hard to imagine Cartagena as a Roman city, with the great buildings of state cheek by jowl with everyday life. (Not favelas, of course — but the contrast is there.) And it’s all the more stark when, if like I did, you end up wandering through one of the less salubrious districts on the way to sant Lucia hospital. It’s easy to imagine people living here for maybe 3000 years.
You must drink a café asiático with Licor 43 — very much the drink of Murcia, and of Cartagena. A heady mix of coffee, condensed milk, citrus, cinnamon and booze. You can have it without alcohol — often called a bonbon — but the Licor 43 is part of the point.
And then take in the sunset at the Castillo de la Concepción. A fine way to finish your day in what is, for my money, one of the most underrated cities in Spain. Or leave via the most mysteriously overdone bus station I have ever encountered. See below.
