Explore Cartagena city with Roman Theatre and Naval Museum

Cartagena, port city, in the provincia (province) and comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Murcia, southeastern Spain. It is the site of Spain’s chief Mediterranean naval base. Its harbour, the finest on the east coast, is a deep spacious bay dominated to seaward by four hills crowned with forts and approached by a narrow entrance guarded by batteries. The outer bay is sheltered by Escombrera Island.

The Cartagena Naval Museum is a military museum near the city port of Cartagena, Spain. It presents exhibitions related to naval construction. It is a subsidiary of the Naval Museum of Madrid. The Naval Museum of Cartagena was opened on July 8, 1986. The original building was built under the direction of the architect Lorenzo Ros in 1926. Originally the building was used by the School of Apprentices of the Spanish Society of Naval Construction. They changed its name in 1947 to National Company Bazán. Later it became the school Our Lady of the Rosary. Later the Navy reclaimed the building and converted it to the naval museum. Captain Luis Delgado Bañón was director until January 8, 2011, when he retired. The current director is the captain of ship Jorge Madrid. The museum has been moved to a new headquarters in the city's seafront, in the former Maritime Instruction Headquarters, a historical building from the mid-eighteenth century that was constructed by the military engineer Mateo Vodopich. The building is in front of the Botes Basin.

The Punic wall of Cartagena is an archaeological site from the 3rd century BC in which can be seen the first defensive wall of Cartagena, built by the Carthaginians. This is an important site because it is one of the few remains of Carthaginian civilization in Spain, and the walls bear witness to one of the most important events of Ancient history in the Mediterranean Sea: the Second Punic War.

The theatre was built between 5 and 1 BC, as has been proven by the dedication of the edifice to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, grandsons of Augustus, who had designated them as his successors. In the 3rd century AD a market was built over the theatre, reusing its materials, with a semicircular open space which followed the plan of the orchestra. The market was perhaps abandoned after a fire caused by the Vandals in 425. A market quarter of the Byzantines was established on the site in the 6th century AD. Dedicatory inscriptions to Gaius and Lucius Caesar. During the 13th century, the Old Cathedral of the city was built over the upper cavea. In 1988 the first remains of the theatre were discovered during the construction of the Centro regional de artesanía. The archaeological excavations and the restorations were completed in 2003. In 2008 a museum, designed by Rafael Moneo, was opened.