Blogs from Region of Murcia, Spain, Europe

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Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena January 28th 2024

So, what do you do when living on a boat in January in Cartagena, Spain? Most of the time, ordinary things that most do in their own homes – cooking, dishes, cleaning, laundry, going grocery shopping, run errands to pick up things in a variety of stores and find time to read and relax. Well, we do these as well, but we do notice that many of these tasks take longer than they do for us at home. Yes, our home here is only 40 foot long, but as the space is broken up and there are numerous “little spaces” to clean or sort, it actually sometimes takes longer to get those areas sorted. The addition of trying to move things out of the way but not “disrupt” the rest of the boat too much is ... read more
Walking Near the Fortress Walls In The Evening
Forts Dot  the Hillsides & The First Battery Powered
Sunday's At the Marina Mean Barbeque Time!

Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena January 10th 2024

A New Year and we are back on Tsamaya! This is definitely earlier than normal, but we decided to try escaping the winter of upstate NY and spend the time in southern Spain instead where our other home, Tsamaya is located. We left on January 2nd and arrived about 4PM local time on January 3rd. It was a little bit of a round robin of a journey but after hopping first to Washington, DC, then to Zurich, Switzerland, we made it to Cartagena, Spain. When we landed the pilot told us that the temperature was 69 degrees F – think we will be able to take this for the 3rd of January! Everything went smoothly and our luggage even came up quickly in baggage claim so all in all a good trip. It was also a ... read more
Lunch in Zurich As Have 4 Hours There,
Nice to Get to Tsamaya During the Daylight
This is Only A Very Small Amount of the Dirt on Tsamaya

Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena November 7th 2023

July 19th - Another day, another destination to get us closer to Cartagena. This time we left Calpe at 9:40am – a treat to not have such an early start as we aren’t going that far today. We decided to stop at Villajoyosa as it looked like it had a good marina and it was in a good location for the remainder of our travels along the Spanish coast working our way west. We checked into Club Nautico Villajoyosa and found it was 53 euro per night ($57) and that included electricity and water. We weren’t sure if we’d want to stay another day, but decided to check. We asked at the marina about extending for a day and found out that they can only promise one day at a time so told us we’d have ... read more
Plenty of Rocky Shorelines With Lighthouses To Help
Look Closely and You Will See Three (3) Waterfalls
Passing by Benidorm, Spain With Modern Buildings

Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena June 19th 2023

Today, our 2nd day in Cartagena, we planned on visiting some museums and taking the tourist boat around the bay. We left the hotel a little after 10am, and wandered down to the marina or port. Yesterday evening we'd been to the port to check it out and found out there was a tourist boat that went around the bay, stopping at the Faro del Navidad, or the Christmas Lighthouse. Apparently its called that because there are two lighthouses, one on each side of the port, green and red. The next boat didn't leave for awhile, so we decided to check out the Museo Naval. It was very interesting and informative, displaying models of ships from quite a few centuries, plus armament and other naval displays. When the time came for the boat, we walked out ... read more
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Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena June 18th 2023

Since our bus didn't leave until after 1pm, we got up late as usual, packed up, and headed to the bus station. After a fairly scenic ride, we arrived in Cartagena, and although we had directions, with the twisting streets and some uphills, we asked how to get to the tourism office. A kind gentleman not only pointed us in the right direction, he led us there. When we talked to the person in the tourism office, they told us it was just up the next street, but she noticed our large bag and recommended a slightly longer route that would be a lot easier. We thanked her and headed up, and up, and up. Good thing we listened to her, because the stairs would have been a killer. We found the Loop Inn Hostel, near ... read more
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Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Murcia June 17th 2023

First of all, before I get into today's blog, let me apologize for being so behind. We've enjoyed ourselves so much that when got back to the room, I was too tired to do anything but transfer the day's photos. I'll try to catch up soon... but no promises. For our second day in Murcia, we didn't plan on more that walking around the town, so we didn't get up that early. We walked down to the transvia (sort of an above ground metro), and road it to the downtown part of Murcia. After wandering around, seeing the Murcia Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace, we walked down to the river Segura to check out the sights there. The was a very unusual statue (?) of a sardine in the middle of the river, called the Monumento ... read more
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Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Murcia June 13th 2023

Today we took our time getting up since we didn't have anything planned until the train from Alicante to Murcia at 2:50pm. We walked a few blocks to the bus stop, and took the bus almost straight to the train station, Alicante Termino. Arriving at the train station in plenty of time, we just sat around waiting for them to call our train. The Alicante Termino is very modern, as was our train to Murcia. It was almost an Ave, which is the high speed train in Spain. We had reserved seats, next to each other in the back of car 4. Pretty soon, we were off. The scenery along the way was pretty cool, and the train only made 3 stops, I think, before reaching Murcia del Carmen train station. Again, we decided to take ... read more
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Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Cartagena March 16th 2023

Cartagena is a small port city with a big history. Since its founding in 227 BC, the city has been ruled over by Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs and finally the Kingdom of Spain - not to mention quite often overrun with gazillions of tourists. Its fabulous natural harbor has been used for thousands of years. Stand on the battlements of the castle that overlook this city and you can literally see layer upon layer of history spread beneath your feet: the wharf where Phoenician traders docked their ships; the streets where Roman legionaries marched; the plaza that once housed a mosque where Islamic Spain prayed to Allah; the hills over which came the armies of Christian Reconquista; the factories of the industrial age; the Modernista buildings; and the contemporary warships of what is still an important naval ... read more
Downtown Cartegena.
Murell de Cartegena.
Old Town Cartegena.

Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia » Murcia January 23rd 2023

Day 1of the adventure. Our first time travelling to Spain via the ferry crossing, Portsmouth to Santander (Bay of Biscay in late January!) and it will be our first time driving an EV in Spain. We've had our Skoda Enyaq since the end of September last year and it has already taken us on trips from our home in East Anglia to the Lake District, and Scotland, and we are getting used to planning for these longer journeys. The plan is to take about a week driving via Bilbao, Valladolid, Madrid and Murcia, before arriving at our destination near Mojacar. As I write the outside temperature is -4C so we're really looking forward to some warmer weather as we drive further and further south. The journey down to Portsmouth went pretty much as planned; caffeine top ... read more
First charge in Spain
Guggenheim Bilbao

Europe » Spain » Region of Murcia December 21st 2020

Dear all, I really had to look back to see when I last posted a blog and it was 21st March in the early stages of COVID lockdown in Spain. Despite my good intentions I have not made much progress on the writing front. It’s odd as I almost feel like I shouldn’t be spending time sitting at the computer writing etc when I could be outside enjoying the great outdoors. I don’t want to revisit the whole lockdown, easing, new normal etc just to say we finally set off back to the UK on in July, much later than usual. We opted to drive back to the UK and had a couple of stops on the way through the north of Spain. Firstly the walled city of Avila, then it was cycling in Asturias on ... read more
Greetings
Village Patrol
Stunning Toledo




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