looksordinary

Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

OK – So It Looks Ordinary

Cartagena isn’t one of those cities that appear on posters and calendars. The city looks, to be honest, a bit dowdy on first inspection. Click on this photograph and have a look.

However, like many good things in life, first impressions aren’t always accurate.

If you stick a spade into the ground in the centre of Cartagena the chances are that you are going to hit the foundations of an ancient building. This really annoys developers and last year several Roman columns were found on a rubbish tip, having been surreptitiously removed from some building site in the historic centre of town.

This photograph is taken from up on the Molinette hill. More than 2 000 years ago this was covered with palaces belonging to the powerful Barca family, Hannibal being their most famous member. Hannibal was brought up in Cartagena, though he wasn’t born there. He marched off with his elephants to cross the Alps and attack the Romans and never returned.

There was a stretch of water here in the old days which gave access to a large lagoon at the back of the city. The town was, therefore, on a peninsula which made it a very good place to defend. The docks were in the area of the photograph.

Look at the picture and you will see a hill at the back. There is a big fort on this hill which is one of many that protected the harbour in the days before aviation and missiles made fixed defences largely meaningless. Today Cartagena is home to one of Spain’s anti-aircraft regiments which has a key role in NATO.

In the photograph you can see the water of the big naval dockyard, with gray warships tied up. This dockyard, or Arsenal, was constructed in the golden age of Cartagena – the 18^th century. British experts were brought out to build warships along the latest lines. Edward Bryant, John Laungham and other master craftsmen gave a new impetus to Spanish naval construction. They were even given special dispensation to practice their Protestant religion in Catholic Spain.

Today the Arsenal is still a very active naval base and, in particular, a submarine headquarters. As well as the navy, there is a large construction centre which is making sophisticated Scorpion class submarines. You may be lucky and see a black sub slinking in or out of the base. Chile is buying Scorpions, presumably n case it gets attacked by penguins. Navy buildings can be seen behind the warships.

At the right there are yellow buildings. Some of these date back to the 18^th century. One was the fencing school of the navy in the days when combat involved hand-to-hand fighting with a sword rather than peering at a computer screen. The navy submarine school buildings, dating back to the1920s are housed in this area and there are several subs mounted on plinths to admire.

However, if you want to admire them, then hard luck. Sometimes organised visits are allowed to the base but you have to be fortunate to find out about them as they are only advertised in Spanish and there are no English-language tours. Try asking the tourism office about them: infoturismo@ayto-cartagena.es. Let us know if you get a response. I tried calling several times (968 526 912) but there was no answer. I t was after 2pm and presumably everyone was having a siesta.

The yellow-painted clock tower of the Arsenal can be seen in the picture and this is a noted local landmark at the main entrance to the base.

At the right of the picture the dome of the Caridad Church can be seen. Cartagena’s cathedral was finally destroyed in the Civil War and today the Caridad Church functions effectively in this role. The Bishop of Cartagena ran away to Murcia City about 800 years ago and he still skulks there today to the considerable annoyance of those who live in the city after which his bishopric is named.

The buildings in the rest of the picture look pretty much a mess. Cartagena people have something of an attitude, rather like Liverpudlians. In the 1870s they decided to break away from the rest of Spain. The resulting bombardment, coolly observed by Royal Navy warships floating off the coast devastated the city leaving only about 20 buildings standing.

Never mind, that gave a great excuse for an explosion of new construction and, in particular, the wealthy mine owners and industrialists ignored the bare foot women and children dying in their deep shafts and factories and invested their money in glorious art-deco and art-nouveau houses in the city. Everyone says these are “influenced by Gaudi” as that’s the only Spanish architect that anyone outside Spain has ever heard of. Well, all right, in modern times there is the man, whose name escapes me a the moment, who built an art gallery out of crushed tin cans in the Basque country.

Cartagena looks much better at street level than it does from up on the Molinette hill. The really good news is that it is not very big and can only really be enjoyed on foot. No nasty subway journeys, crowded buses or bad-tempered taxi drivers. There are plenty of cafes everywhere to sit down and enjoy a coffee and tapas.

end

BACK

Legal Notice - All script & pictures on this website are legally registered and the copyright property of Phillip Bruce. Any copying of material whatsoever from this site is strictly forbidden and legal action will follow unless prior permission is sought.

Gary Smith Fishing