Short break in Cartagena

If any of you have called by in the past few days you will have noticed that I have not been posting. Jan and I had a short break to Cartagena with a couple of friends. For those of you who have not been, its a beautiful city and well worth a visit. Just one big drawback, it appears to have no Napoleonic history at all!

You may know that it is is in the south east corner of Spain, and I realised it was quite far from the centre of attention as far as Napoleon's marshals and generals were concerned. I seem to remember that Soult had sent the occasional body of troops towards Murcia and Cartagena, but could not find anything of real note.

It is of course more famous for his ancient Roman history, but I thought that I would ask at the tourist information centre. I was quite disappointed to find that the very helpful assistant did not appear to have heard of Napoleon or the Peninsular War of 1807-1814. Certainly not in relation to Cartagena. The city does have an impressive and well preserved 18th century city wall (see photo above), but apparently it was not put to the test during the Peninsular War.

Worse, I was cut off from any contact with the Internet. We had rented a villa at the coast near Cartagena in an area called Mar Menor. This is "out of season" so there was not even a grocery shop open - let alone an Internet cafe. The villa did not even have TV, so not much chance of Internet . Jan was convinced that it would do me good to have a complete break from the Internet - I am not so sure.

Anyway I am back now and ready to get back to the Magdeburg PBEM campaign. My first action was to post the latest move in the Battle of Seehausen, which you can read by clicking label 11 on the right.