When doing my internet research on this port we were surprised by the dearth of available information. Most brief summaries of the city ended with a comment on their attempt to revitalize tourism. Usually this results in the port being disappointing. We are happy to report that Cartagena was a pleasant surprise. The Prinsendam docked right in front of the city walls, an easy three block walk to the city. As we disembarked there was an information kiosk (www.cartagena.es) staffed by two very knowledgeable locals armed with maps. There was also a booth where they were giving complementary samples of the local liquor called “42”, this was a bit much for 9:00am, but we of course stashed one (ok two) for later sampling. We didn’t take advantage of it, but were thrilled to see that the tourist office provided free new bicycles to explore the city. They looked like nice new ones and before long we saw many of the crew greatly enjoying this service. They were like kids with a new toy; it was great to see them enjoying themselves on a break from their hard work onboard. We headed through the city gates to the main street Carmen Mayor which was nice, wide, level and pedestrian only. This was not planned as sightseeing day, more a mission to find an internet café and stock up on supplies (meaning Lays potato chips for me and Diet Pepsi for Janis). So we walked though the old town to the new wide and tree lined boulevard Alameda de San Antí³n on a bee-line course to the El Corte Inglés department store (www.elcorteingles.es). We really enjoy popping into a Corte Ingles as in addition to reasonable prices for our supplies, we can get a taste of the local life. In the case today we wandered around the grocery section to get an idea of the food cost. Beef was very expensive about $12 per lb for sirloin, vegetables were about the same as the US and Spanish wine very inexpensive. We had to laugh as in addition to the standard box table wine, they also have wine in small six pack “sippy” boxes (similar to what we have juices in for kids). We then went to the café section and had a café con leche paired with the requisite pastry. It was five minutes of heaven, excellent coffee and pastries at a reasonable price (€5). As we still hadn’t found an internet café so we decide explore a bit off the beaten track. We discovered that in this area of Spain it is the grandfathers who take the children out in the strollers for the morning walk. It was fun to watch these older gentlemen act gruff in front of their friends and at the same time “cooing” their grandchildren. While in the neighborhood school had let out so we were flooded by a sea of kids in school uniforms. It seems that they take siesta seriously as school was out by 1:00pm. We also dropped into to a local pub to cool off and sample the local beer. (it was great beer and a deal at one Euro!) We eventually found out internet café caught up with our email and reluctantly started our walk back to the ship. In all we found this Cartagena to be small and very pleasant. There were no massive must see sights (though there were some nice Roman sites and the Castillo), but it was a nice slow paced seaside city which we would return without hesitation.