Cartagena is the kind of port where history does not sit behind glass. It rises from the hillside, opens beneath your feet, frames the marina, and follows you down streets that have carried soldiers, merchants, sailors, miners, and travellers for more than 2,000 years. Set on Spain’s south-eastern coast, in Murcia’s warm Mediterranean stretch known as the Costa Cálida, Cartagena owes much of its story to its harbour. The natural bay is sheltered, deep, and strategically place