The best things to do in Cartagena — top beaches, activities, attractions and days out, handpicked for tourists, families and locals alike.
Paseo Alfonso XII 22, Cartagena
The National Museum of Underwater Archaeology on the waterfront — treasures raised from Mediterranean shipwrecks, telling the Phoenician, Carthaginian and Roman story of this ancient port.
The Molinete Roman Forum district — an archaeological park of a forum, thermal baths and a banqueting hall (the Atrium), roofed and walkable in the heart of the old town.
The Punic Wall interpretation centre, built over a stretch of the 3rd-century-BC Carthaginian defences — the story of Qart Hadasht, the city Hannibal's family founded.
The Naval Museum on the old arsenal quay, home to the restored Isaac Peral — the world's first fully operational electric combat submarine, built here in 1888. Cartagena is the birthplace of the submarine.
Plaza Ayuntamiento 1, Cartagena
The dazzling white Modernist town hall by the port — a wedding-cake of marble and glass, one of Spain's finest Modernist civic buildings.
Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Cartagena
Cartagena's crown jewel — a magnificent 1st-century-BC Roman theatre for 7,000, lost for centuries and rebuilt from its own stones, entered through a museum that walks you down to the tiers. Unmissable.