Yesterday was a 'museum' day, starting with the Roman Theatre Museum, which is one of the best museums we have been to anywhere in the world. The Roman Theatre was built in late first century BC but in the 3rd century AD a market (medina) was built by the Moors over the theatre, reusing its materials such as beautiful marble columns as foundations for their buildings. Later another market quarter of the Byzantines was established on the site in the 6th century AD. During the 13th C a Cathedral was built over another part of the Roman Theatre. All of this was not known until in 1988 when the first remains of the theatre were discovered and the archaeological excavations and the restorations were not completed until 2003. Although Roman theatres etc. have been discovered in many parts of Europe the special aspect of this one in Cartagena is the development of the accompanying museum. Visitors enter the complex through the museum and do not see the actual Roman Theatre (with seating for 6,000 people when originally built!) until after an outstanding series of presentations that show the architectural design of the theatre and the history of the area over the 22 centuries. This occurred through a number of rooms and corridors, going up escalators to higher levels so that by the time we emerged at the site of the theatre we had learned an incredible amount of interesting information and had a great appreciation of what we were seeing. It is brilliant.
When we decided to come to Cartagena it was mostly because it was a suitable port for our boat and it was at a suitable place for us to stop before going on to Alicante. We had no idea of the historical significance here. In other parts of the town there is also a Roman Forum and parts of fortresses built by different groups over the centuries. These fortresses are also on several of the hills we can see from the marina.
Next we went to the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which has objects and information about underwater archeological excavations from the 7th C BC to the 19th C AD. This is also a fantastic interactive museum, but there was so much to learn that our brains were in overload and I was ready for a sleep!
It was another very hot day so we spent the rest of the afternoon on the boat reading and spraying ourselves with water from the hose until Ian cooked us a magnificent dinner - prawn risotto. Absolutely fantastic!
Today we were very fortunate because the electrician was able to able to sort out our electrical problems and gave Greg lots of great information about our power use. Ian, Michele and I went out for breakfast (bruschetta with grated tomato plus good coffee) and shopping (three pair of shoes for €14!) while Greg dealt with the electrician and we have all been relaxing on the boat since our return.