The Catholic (obviously) church “Iglesia de Santa María de Gracia” was mentioned a fair bit in the museum in Castillo de la Concepcion and was already on my list to visit. Google said it closed between 2pm and 5pm so we headed there after the castle about 1pm…
… and it was closed 😞
And there were no signs saying WHEN it was open and no signs even saying the name of the church – it was just closed…
But – as we were there – the first photo below is of the outside…
So we then decided to go for cake & coffee. We were right in the bustling centre & saw a lovely cakey place so I bagged a table in the sunshine and told Dave to go in & choose a cake and take a piccie to show me – which he did. He wanted the massive creamy thing with like a toffee topping then said he felt sick 🤢 after eating it !!! I was a bit more moderate & chose a small sweet pastry filled with confectioners cream (which I haven’t had since the 1970’s !!!) and – as Goldilocks said – it was just right 😋
The OTHER church that was on my list was Iglesia de Santo Domingo – also in the centre a few minutes walk away – so we visited there and I got my fix… ☦️
After here we TRIED (really hard) to visit the “Roman Theatre” (not the old amphi-theatre next to the lift that we’d taken photos of up at the top earlier) – this was a different place. Google Ma[s took us to it but we couldn’t – for love nor money – find the ticket office & entrance – even though we SEE other visitors inside.
Cartagena is quite hilly and Dave was SURE that if we went HIS way, we would come to the entrance – but even though we walked all the way around (including a steep hill) – we ended back where we’d started….
The last piccie below IS of the place from the OUTSIDE looking down 😂 (but sadly not any taken on the inside…)
Dave was hacked off by then so we headed back to The Van and bid Cartegena farewell (as we didn’t fancy another disturbed night) and headed for Almeria (pronounce “Al-Maria’ – not as I was saying it “Al-Mair-ee-a” !!!) where we were due to meet Dave’s childhood best friend – Michael Vincent Taylor (AKA “Mick”) and his partner Debs for more fun & frolicks…
