Before our Segway tour of Cartagena Steve insisted we visit the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia Subacuatica.

You can only imagine his excitement as we entered the museum and wandered around.

He recognised different techniques for mapping an underwater archaeological site and with great gusto explained numerous details for me.

To be honest it was more interesting than I thought it would be and it wasn’t too big so didn’t last hours and hours.

Plus it was really close to where we needed to meet our segway tour guide, Sergio from Ensegway.

A side note

On a side note, there aren’t any newsagencies in Spain, or none that we found.

Instead they have what are called kiosk’s that sell newspapers, magazines etc.

They are small stalls in malls like the one in the photos below.

A segway tour of Cartagena

Our 6pm segway tour meant it wasn’t too hot and when Sergio was clear we were confident on the segway’s, off we went.

We saw the very first submarine ever built and the impressive list of conquerors of the natural port area, that is Cartagena.

We visited the Roman theatre ruins, stopped for a cerveza and a chat and climbed, with ease, to the highest vantage point in the city.

One of the best parts of a segway tour is the information and stories from our guides. It really makes the tour memorable and interesting.

The downside of being on a segway

As much fun as segway tours are, we have noticed one downside.

The machines are guided by your weight transfer through your feet i.e. from flat feet, to weight in the front of your feet means you move forward and vice versa for backward.

Sideways is slightly different with a lean of the handle bars and slight weight change to the sides of the foot.

Here ends the lesson.

So, what we have noticed is after 20minutes plus on the machines is… hot feet.

Our feet actually tingle and start to heat up.

I’m sure Steve has a scientific explanation…

The machines have a small electric motor that draws power from a rechargeable battery.

The stability gyroscopes also draw power from the battery.

Each of these items produce heat.

When driving along vibrations caused from riding over uneven ground and the heat from the segway unit transfer to your feet.

Thanks science-dude Steve.

The way I deal with it is to get off the segway whenever I can and stretch my feet.

On this trip we have done segway tours in Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, Valencia, Cartagena, Granada and Seville.

Steve’s perspective

The port of Cartagena is a naturally sheltered, naturally very deep water port at the discharge of the river.

In old times the river and the ocean formed a natural moat around the city.

This strategically defendable city was the envy of all of southern Europe for thousands of years.

In more modern times it was even used as a Russian submarine base.

The Spanish still have a navy base in the port area.

One of the greatest strategic military conquerors, Hannibal started his conquest of Europe and Asia from Cartagena.

Elephants from Africa were brought through the port to form Hannibal’s historic armies.

See why we were so fascinated by the region?