Cartagena is a lovely city on the border of the Mediterranean Sea. It hosts a naval base and a commercial port. But this commercial port is not the Puérto Deportivo (marina) or the Puérto Pesquero (fishing harbor) which are close to the city center. The Port of Cartagena is next to Cerro de la Campa … Read more
I have a little headache. Today we went a day out with the nietos (our two grandsons) and our son. First we went to the Museo Nacional de Arqueología Subacuática in Cartagena. There are all kinds of interactive features and the boys loved it. After that, we went to the Centro Commercial Espacio Mediterráneo, which is … Read more
This is a pozo. It’s a pit where they used to produce ice during the winter. This pozo is one out of five we saw today at an altitude of 1400 meters near the highest mountain of the Parque Regional Sierra Espuña: the Morrón de Espuña (1583 meters). In winter, men from the surrounding villages came … Read more
Manuel de Falla y Matheu (1876-1946) was one of Spain’s most important composers of the first half of the twentieth century. His best-known composition is El Amor Brujo, which can roughly be translated as The Bewitched Love. At the Auditorio El Batel in Cartagena this evening we experienced El Amor Brujo as a ballet in a … Read more
This picture is taken on a Sunday morning at eleven o’clock on the paseo along the Puerto Deportivo of Cartagena. We’ve been on this paseo already several times and love it. But we’ve never seen it so empty. That it is so empty is not very obvious. The paseo is next to the city center. … Read more
I don’t have a lot of pictures with a smiling Tom. Usually, he has some funny face, or looks awkward, or has something in his mouth so his face looks distorted. But now I know what makes him smile in a relaxed way: we have to buy a new car! 🙂 And as you can … Read more
Most classical buildings are dating back to Classical Antiquity, the Renaissance, or the 19th-century eclectic revival. However, although you wouldn’t guess it, this building is not even a hundred years old. The construction started in 1933. The function is also hard to figure out without context: it’s an army barrack. They stored bullets here. Not … Read more
One of our regular walks is from the house through the surrounding hills to the via verde. The via verde is a cycle path from Mazarrón to Totana and Cartagena. When we arrive at the via verde, we can either go to the left in the direction of the urbanization Country Club or to the … Read more
Today we enjoyed our second guided tour, organized by the Tourist Office of Mazarrón. Again the subject was ancient history – the Phoenicians and the Romans – but this time in Puerto de Mazarrón. From our visit to the museum Arqva in Cartagena, we knew that the Phoenician boat that is displayed over there is … Read more
This is a sailing vessel. The rectangular hole you see at the waterline, almost at the rear of the ship, can contain a big-sized lorry from left to right, or vice versa. The boat belongs to the Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko. It was built on the shipyard Nobiskrug in Germany and designed by Philippe Starck. … Read more