Cartagena (pronunced Cartayena)




Stayed in a small town called Atamaria, near Cartagena, about 2 hrs south of Valencia, for two nights.

You are really getting into the summer beach crowds from here south.

Cartagena has a lot of hisytory that goes back to Roman times (100 BC). Cartagena has a deep and well protected harbour which has made it attractive for the Romans, later for the Moors and then the Spanish. It has a naval base.

In 1986 a Roman Amphitheatre was discovered buried under urban development. No one knew it was there. And the seating and amphitheatre was largely intact. They believe it was built by Emperor Augustus in about 100 B.C. It is amazing to think it had lain there for 2000 years largely untouched while different empires, rulers and people had raged and built above it.

We went to a beach about 20 minutes out of Atamaria called Playa de los Muertos. It is recognized as one of the nicest beaches in Spain. The beach is made up of small quartz pebbles. Small enough to walk and sit on comfortably, large enough not to stick to you like sand does. They do not get as hot as sand either.

You need to park by the road and walk down quite a rough track for about 700m to get to the beach. We thought we would get there early - about 10.30am. (That is early in Spain!). Even at that time, there were 3-400 cars in the car park.

We walked down to the beach and found a place to sit. We thought it was about as close as New Zealanders would go to the next group on a crowded beach. By the time we left 2 hours later there were another two groups in that space!

The water was clear and warm and it was nice swimming.

On our way back up to the car at about 1.00 pm we passed nearly 200 people coming down the track. And cars were being parked nearly 1km from the top of the track. Temperature at that time was about 33C.

We next day was a long drive to Gibraltar. It was incredible to see km after km of tunnel houses, glass houses and shade houses. Tens of thousands of hectares under cover. I could not see into many of them, but those I could see into were all empty so maybe it is the European winter garden



A yacht parked along side the navy wharf in Cartagena



Amphitheatre in Cartagena



Jo on the Red Carpet in the Town Hall at Cartagena




Tunnel and shade houses in Almeria
In spite of the extreme dry, they can grow good citrus

Just a typical Spanish beach crowd at Playa de los Muertos



When I first saw this boat I tought it was a boat load of refugees - it was soo crowded - but it was just tourists!!

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