Cartagena and a Bus Ride to the City of Leche

Port of Cartagena

Cartagena and a Bus Ride to the City of Leche

The Ruby Princess docked in Cartagena, Spain this morning at 7:00 am. Cartagena is an ancient port.  It once served as Hannibal’s Spanish headquarters during the second Punic War with Rome. Cartagena became important because of its climate and soil. 

MA and I didn’t stay in Cartagena, but had decided to take a bus tour to the coastal city of Leche.  Our tour left at 8:30 am on a modern comfortable bus.  The weather was mild, temperature 25 C or 75 F.   Our tour guide was a young Spanish lady who spoke well in English and had a magnificent vocabulary.  The bus headed north out of Cartagena on A-7, the auto route that parallels the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

Some of the agriculture fields along highway

The highway traverses the market basket of Europe.  Agriculture is king in this part of Spain and Europe.  There are large farms with multiple crops growing.  Some with potatoes and onions were being picked by gangs of pickers.  There are large greenhouses also on the farms growing year round.  I saw three large herds of sheep this morning and all three were large.  One farmer had just turned a herd loose into a picked field getting a second harvest of food for his sheep.

We arrived in Leche around 10:00 am and our first stop was the National Artistic Garden named El Huerto del Cura.  This is a garden of palm trees, cactus, and flowers. Typical Mediterranean species are grown here including orange and lemon trees.  We found several ponds, one with a momma duck and a bunch of brand new little ones.

After the Garden we were bused to the old part of downtown for escorted guided walk.  MA and I found out when and where the bus would pick us up and we went off on our own.  We walked across the street to a church and went inside.  I switched to a 20mm 2.8 lens and photographed the interior.  We decided to have lunch and found the Paris Café, sat down with a couple on the tour and had the tapas (combination order) of chicken, potato croquettes and guacamole.  Before long it was time to meet the bus, board and travel back to the ship. 

We ran into one of our trivia teammates and he wanted to play the afternoon game.  We didn’t know most of the questions so we didn’t even switch our answer sheet.  MA said that if future trivia were like this, we would probably stop playing!  Example: What do you call a pregnant goldfish?  What is the tallest building in all of Europe?  What did so and so (some woman I never heard of) invent in 1862 that was a big help for working men?  Answers:  Twit – some new building in London – the dishwasher.   I think you get the drift!

I gotta get ready for dinner…see you later. WW