About Turn

Puntas de Calregre to Cartegena

27th November

35 miles

Puntas de Calegre is as far south as we're going to get on this leg of the trip. By my reckoning we've driven about 2410 miles so far. As we headed north up the A7 autopista I think both of us were feeling a bit down. In terms of our inner compasses, south is always our happy direction. Unlike Python's infamous deceased parrot, you would never find either me or Gill  'pining for the fjords'.

We have decided to use the aire at Cartagena. It's a while since we've visited a city, and since we have a soft spot for Mediterranean ports, then Cartegena would be one more ticked off. The place has a venerable history, an interesting architectural heritage, and quite by chance when we arrived was in the midst of Cathagineses y Romanos, an annual festival involving a series of re-enactments of battles between the Romans and Carthaginians.

As this festival indicates, Cathagena is a Punic city, founded as Novo Cathago in 223 BC. by Hannibal. Subsequently it was ruled by the Romans, Moors and then taken by Christian forces in 1242. More recently, it was the last Spanish city to capitulate to Franco's army and suffered considerable damage during the civil war. No wonder it has been fought over, Cartagena possess one of the finest natural  deep water harbours in the Western Mediterranean, and remains to this day an important naval base.

A statue of Hannibal who founded 'New Carthage' in 223BC. stands near the castle

The modern arena with the natural deep water harbour and the naval base in the background

With all of this history and the development of industry in the area, unsurprisingly the city is characterful rather than beautiful. We parked about four miles from its centre, near Dolores, and caught the bus to the centre - €1.40 each - great value. The outskirts are run-down, and you can see that since the demise of manufacturing in the 1980s, like in many industrial cities, times have been hard. Nevertheless it is an interesting place with significant archaeological remains from the roman period, a Baroque city hall and streets in the old centre brimming with modernista buildings, some superbly renovated, but many in a near ruinous state.

The remains of the Roman theatre.

one of many modernista style doorways

As part of the celebrations most of  the old quarter had been given over to a medieval market. It was very similar to the one we saw back in February in Palma di Mallorca - lots of pop-up food places, stalls selling specialist cheeses and sausages, art-crafty stalls, wandering minstrels and dancers - you get the picture!

Afterwards we climbed the hill to the castle, chatted to some elderly but feisty American tourists escaped from the big cruise ship that was dominating the harbour.  By this time the forecast rain duly arrived. We wandered about until we found a cafe and had toasts and patatas bravas, then moved on for coffee in a nice old place dating from 1905. We were glad to sit down, not only because of the rain, but also we've developed some kind of bug over the past week - upset tummy, mild fluey symptoms and low energy levels. We decided to call it a day, caught the no. 7 back to Dolores, and returned to the van well before evening.

The American tourists' huge cruise ship half filled the harbour.

Patates Bravas - yum...

toasts - but not your average Welsh rarebit....yum!

and afterwards, coffees in a nearby Modernista cafe

The 'camper stop' here is excellent, and much more to our taste than the 'long-stay' sites in the area. The young woman managing the place is wonderfully friendly, happy just to chat. We also had a long conversation with a couple from Yorkshire who have been motoring through Spain and Portugal every winter for the past seven years. They gave us some useful leaflets for sites we might use in February. The other great thing about this aire is the reliable FREE Wifi. I managed to update the blog completely, including embedding a few video clips. It does annoy me when other sites charge up to €3 per day for a Wifi link, which subsequently proves to be intermittent, slow and pathetically weak.

With rain showers forecast for tomorrow we will move north again. We will have to use the sites on the coast even if their atmosphere is not to our liking. We need the laundry facilities and a place to print out Ryan Air boarding cards. There is quite a bit of sorting out to do to get the van into a state where it can be left for two months. We 've checked the forecast for next Friday, there is no doubt winter is arriving, the temperature in Alicante is set to be 17 degrees during the day, just a week ago that was the average nighttime temperature. What is really a downer, however, is the forecast for Buxton, only 4 degrees maximum, dropping to zero. Now you understand why south for us is not simply a point on the compass, but a constant aspiration, a place of treasured memories - a  happy state of mind.