Cartagena: the ugliest city in Spain?
If there’s something that bothers me when reading travel blogs it’s the whitewashing of details that really affect the travel experience. Case in point: Cartagena Spain. You’ll find a lot of flowery blog posts with titles such as “The top 10 things to do in Cartagena”. They all sound wonderful, as maybe they should: this is a city that dates back to the Carthaginians (also known as the Punic people) and then the Romans. There’s tons of history and, in theory, lots to see.
But one thing those travel blogs won’t tell you is what an ugly city this is. It’s so ugly that you just wonder “why is this city so damn ugly? What happened to this place?” Why are there so many ruins all over the place?” And I’m not talking about Roman ruins, I’m talking about bombed-out looking buildings. Why is there garbage and graffiti everywhere? Why is there a Roman Amphitheatre being used to store construction supplies? Who runs this place and why does it look like a 1970’s version of the Bronx? (as Lissette stated. She grew up in the Bronx in the 70’s).
Am I just crazy thinking this is the ugliest mess of a city I’ve seen in Spain? Because looking at posts on the internet the search of “Cartagena ugly” comes up with nothing.
Until I found this*. Which reassured me that, in fact, we have not become jaded travellers who see places with ugly eyes. No, the truth is that much of Cartagena (Spain) is just butt-ugly.
*Note: you may have a hard time seeing the article because it has a paywall. I can see it free on my phone, not on my PC: Summarizing it, according to The Local ES, the ugliest cities in Spain are: Linares (Jaen), Albacete (Castilla La Mancha), Puertollano (Ciudad Real), Getafe (Madrid), Torrejon de Ardoz (Madrid), Sabadell (Barcelona), Mostoles (Madrid), Fuenlabrada (Madrid), Huelva (Andalusia), La Laguna (Canary Islands), Torrelavega (Cantabria), Ferrol (Galicia)…and Cartagena (Murcia).
But what makes Cartagena different from the other cities on that list of ugly cities is that Cartagena actually gets a lot of tourism. We had spent 3 days in the city of Almeria where we saw very few tourists and where the few tourists we saw were 99.9% Spanish. But here in Cartagena there were many more tourists, many being English, French, Dutch and German. No doubt they came here to witness some Roman history. So its even more shocking how unkept this city is.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some nicer parts of the city. It’s not all inner-city ghetto. And there are some interesting highlights (which I’ll cover in another post).
But we were here 3 nights and, had we known what Cartagena was really like, we would have limited it to 1 night. Or maybe we would just have visited just as a daytrip from the city of Murcia.
Really, that’s why I’m being honest with this post. Would you want to be enticed by photos of a beach destination only to arrive and see garbage strewn all over the beach, see every third building shuttered up or hollowed out, or witness roving bands of migrants combing through garbage cans or begging for money?
Because Cartagena is the historical destination equivalent to that beach destination.
I read another account of Cartagena from a local: “an ugly naval city surrounded by petrochemical industry that is not really worth a visit”. That’s pretty much bang on. Cartagena reminded me of somewhere we had previously been and I had to search hard in my memory banks…that city is Pula in Croatia. Another city in a bay famous for its Roman ruins and a castle on a hill but which, like Cartagena, is surrounded by the ugliest examples of modernity possible.
More images below to show off Cartagena
As I say, Cartagena does have some interesting sites worth seeing. That’s what makes it so sad. But I think potential visitors should know the good as well as the bad so that they can plan accordingly.
*Note: we’ve been to the other Cartagena (in Colombia) twice. Beautiful city. Don’t get the two Cartagenas mixed up.
Related: What to Do in the City of Almeria
It was a belated honeymoon during my first marriage. I was in lawschool at the time. and it seemed exotic. My wife got ill the last day we were there and the flight back to the US was interesting. I got sick after we were back home and went to see a dr at the school medical clinic, who had been a field doc in Vietnam. Told me that I had an intestinal virus worse than anything he had seen while in combat. Never went back to Mexico.
Sorry to hear Paul. Got really sick my first time in Mexico but since then go back every year (10 now) usually a month at a time and have never gotten sick. Same happened my 1st time in South Africa. Seems to always happen when somewhere new and exotic…
Yikes! had a similar experience decades ago when I visited Acapulco, Mexico. On the beach, there were police carrying AK 47s. In the city, there were tons of people begging and open drug deals. Went to a restaurant that was supposed to be scenic – it was on the side of a steep hill overlooking a picturesque bay. Except that the bay was full of decommissioned naval ships that were abandoned and had become homes to people. First and last visit there.
That’s one place in Mexico I haven’t been Paul and which I never intend to go. I don’t know if it’s better/worse now than it was decades ago but still hear that Acapulco is an iffy place…