Effort Wasted

I noted in yesterday's post that there were two cruise liners in port, however there were in fact three - a smaller one hidden by the other two  but which we saw leave port last night

When we were out for dinner last night around 7pm the town was dead as but by 8pm it was a mass of people again - it really is a strange phenomenon 

Before it got too hot this morning we went for a walk to have a look at the Roman Theatre the jewel in the crown in Cartagena. Built in around 1BC it was not discovered until 1988 and the archeological excavations where not completed until 2003

From the high point in the "Roman area" there are good views of the harbour...

...and the city

The hotel we are staying in is the building to the left centre of the photo and our room is the second in from the corner on the terrace level (room 510).

There was also a contrasting view of the Old and the new as an outside auditorium has been built on the slopes alongside the ancient theatre

Although we are around 100m from the harbour the nearest swimming is some 5 kms by bus away so we thought we would seek out the local municipal pool. The reception desk gave us a map and marked where the pools were (some 40 minutes walk in his view) so before venturing we decided to cross check with the tourist information office.

The girl there was adamant that the city had no public pools but when I told her that we thought there were some in the area where the reception had told us she checked the internet and to her surprise found that her city did have pools but they, according to her, were one street across from where we had been told.

Confident that there were pools in a general area we set off in the afternoon heat only to find when we got there they were closed until 1 September.

Now what bright civic identity would decide to close a swimming facility in the height of the summer season particularly when his/her city has no open sea swimming even though their city is on the Mediterranean and the average daily temperature in August is 28.7C (not the average high but the average during a 24 hour period) and their city is the warmest city in Continental Europe - go figure!

All we could do was walk back to the hotel sweat come off us in copious amounts and have a cold shower - all the effort but non of the reward.