Spain

Saturday, April 16 – Cartagena Spain

Good or bad, the newest Holland America ship, the Nieuw Amsterdam ship was in port with us so over 400 of us ventured over to visit her. She is a beauty with pool cabanas, a lovely Asian restaurant Tamarind and a Manhattan theme; 86000 tons and 2200 passengers (compared to our 1200 passengers and 58000 tons) BUT this meant less time in the beautiful city of Cartagena! It was a beautiful day with a warm sun and clear skies and we found out we were in an easily walk-able city. We found the Roman Theatre with a capacity for 6000 spectators with columns, the Punic Wall from 299 BC, the Decumano Calzada Romana which reflects the street life of a Roman city on the main road of Carthago Nova with the bustle of the shops and coming and going of people between the port and forum and the grocery store! They are always a good place to wander around to see the specialties of the region as reasonable prices. There was also a tourist boat for an hour’s tour of the castles and forts along the coast - -next time! Very clean city with a nice walking street and free WIFI at the City Hall. Hope to return there again also!

Cartagena is Spain’s principal naval base. There are five natural hills and it was from here that Hannibal set out in 218 BC with a mighty army and his elephants crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps before narrowly failing to destroy the Roman Republic. The Romans had their revenge in 209 BC when they captured Cartagena and ruled until the 2nd century AD. The area is rich in lead, iron, copper, zinc and sulfur and mining is a big industry here.

Entertainer Marty Brill, TV and motion picture comedy writer.

Sunday, April 17, Palm Sunday – Cadiz Spain
Lovely day – brisk wind with a hot sun. My kind of weather. Cadiz claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western world. Julius Caesar first held public office here and Columbus set out from here on this second voyage, after which the city became the home base of the Spanish fleet. Most of its buildings were built in part with the gold and silver form the New World.

Met our friends Arnold, Astrid and Bob at the pier and spent a few hours chatting and eating on the back deck. Wonderfully relaxing time. We were together two years ago and they drove over 2+ hours to meet us.

After they left, we headed in to the lovely port town of Cadiz for the Palm Sunday procession from the Santo Domingo church. The streets were lined with masses of people and they were also standing in the small balconies above the narrow cobblestoned streets. From the side of the church, came many young altar boys in white gowns with a white hood with only their eyes showing. Each church has a different color for their gowns. Then walked rows of older boys swinging the incense. Then the large floats depicting Christ’s Passion – and I mean large. The scenes on the floats were elaborate and ornate. And they must have weighed a lot. I counted feet for 72 men UNDER one float. Imagine trying to all walk together with your head covered and the only set of eyes for all these men were from the men in the very front of the float. It was a slow mechanical sway of walk as they progressed down the cobblestoned streets. And then the band! Whew. The sound they made – powerful, powerful, powerful. It actually brought tears to my eyes. I thought of them as a highly talented high school marching band – a sound that touched your soul. There are 30 processionals scheduled for this Holy Week/Semana Santa – what an incredible time to visit Cadiz.

We ventured out to the 1st century BC Roman ruins, found a beautiful city wall with an overlook to the Atlantic Ocean that was spectacular and then walked the narrow streets down to the Cathedral. If our plan had been to wander that area, we were wrong. It was a huge throng of people waiting for another procession to finish or end there so we found some other less-traveled streets and headed to the Genoves Park. We enjoyed a homing pigeon hut, a waterfall with a high lookout over the sea and city, lovely flowers and benches to relax on and beautiful groomed trees. Wandering through various other squares, we found the ones with free WIFI and headed back to the ship to get the computers. Back at the square, we worked and phoned home. Luckily, it was not dark until after 9PM!
Dinner in the cabin and collapsed! Great day. “Aires de Cadiz” flamenco show.