Castillo Grande
Barrio Bocagrande, Cartagena, Colombia
The Fuerte de San Juan de Manzanillo (known locally as Castillo Grande) is a small 17th-century fortress on the tip of the Bocagrande peninsula that guarded the southern entrance to Cartagena Bay — now sitting among the modern high-rises of the resort district.
Castillo San Felipe de Barajas
Corredor Vial de Cartagena, Mamonal, Cartagena, Colombia
San Felipe de Barajas is the largest Spanish fortress in the Americas — a massive stone fortification on the Hill of San Lázaro that was built between 1536 and 1657 and successfully repelled every attack launched against it, including the 1741 siege by British Admiral Edward Vernon (who arrived with 186 ships and 23,600 men — one of the largest amphibious forces assembled before D-Day — and was defeated by a Spanish garrison of 3,000 led by the one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged commander Blas de Lezo).
Cerro de La Popa
Cerro de la Popa, Cartagena, Colombia
Cerro de La Popa is Cartagena's highest point — a 150-metre hill east of the walled city crowned by the Convento de la Popa, a 17th-century Augustinian monastery that was the city's spiritual sentinel for three centuries.
Clock Tower Gate (Torre del Reloj)
3-13 Calle 35, Centro, Cartagena, 130001, Colombia
The Clock Tower is the main entrance to Cartagena's walled city — a yellow gateway originally built in the 16th century as a simple military entrance and later crowned with the clock tower that has become the symbol of the city.
Convento de la Popa
Cerro de la Popa, Cartagena, Colombia
The Convento de la Popa is a 17th-century Augustinian monastery on the highest hill in Cartagena — the Cerro de la Popa (150 metres), whose summit provides the most comprehensive panoramic view of the city: the walled old city, the harbour, Bocagrande, the islands offshore, and the Caribbean stretching to the horizon.
Iglesia de San Pedro Claver
Calle San Pedro Claver, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
The church and convent of San Pedro Claver — a Jesuit complex completed in 1654 — is the most important site in Cartagena for the history of the African slave trade.
Las Bóvedas
Calle 34, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
Las Bóvedas are 23 barrel-vaulted dungeons built into the city walls in 1798 at the northern corner of the walled city — originally military storerooms for gunpowder and munitions, later used as prisons during the 19th-century independence wars, and now converted into artisan craft shops selling hammocks, mochilas (woven bags), Colombian coffee, and the emerald jewellery for which Colombia is famous (the country produces an estimated 55% of the world's emeralds).
Museo del Oro Zenú
Plaza de Bolívar, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
The Museo del Oro Zenú is Cartagena's branch of Colombia's famous Gold Museum system — a compact museum on Plaza de Bolívar dedicated to the Zenú culture, a pre-Columbian civilisation that inhabited the Colombian Caribbean coast from approximately 200 BC to 1600 AD and produced some of the most sophisticated filigree gold work of pre-colonial America.
Palacio de la Inquisición
Plaza de Bolívar, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
The Palace of the Inquisition is the most historically significant colonial building in Cartagena — a Baroque palace on Plaza de Bolívar that served as the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition in New Granada from 1610 to 1821.
Palenque de San Basilio (Day Trip)
San Basilio del Palenque, Mahates, Colombia
San Basilio de Palenque is the first free Black settlement in the Americas — a village 50 kilometres south of Cartagena founded in the 17th century by escaped enslaved Africans (cimarrones) led by Benkos Biohó, who established an independent community in the foothills that the Spanish were never able to reconquer.
Plaza de Bolívar & Cathedral
Plaza de Bolívar, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
Plaza de Bolívar is the formal heart of Cartagena's old city — a shaded square anchored by a statue of Simón Bolívar (the liberator of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru) and surrounded by the Palace of the Inquisition (now a museum documenting the Spanish Inquisition's activities in Cartagena), the Cathedral, and the colonial buildings that housed the institutions of Spanish colonial power.
Plaza de la Aduana
Plaza de la Aduana, Centro, Cartagena, Colombia
Plaza de la Aduana is the largest and oldest square in Cartagena — a broad trapezoidal plaza used as the main mustering ground of the city since the 16th century, surrounded by the Old Customs House (now the Alcaldía, or city hall), the Palacio Municipal, and the Plaza de los Coches beyond.
San Pedro Claver Church & Museum
3-101 Calle 31, Centro, Cartagena, 130001, Colombia
The Church and Monastery of San Pedro Claver honours the Spanish Jesuit priest who spent 40 years (1615-1654) ministering to enslaved Africans arriving at Cartagena's port — meeting the slave ships, providing food and medicine to the captives, baptising an estimated 300,000 people, and campaigning for the humane treatment of the enslaved in a colony whose economy depended on their labour.
Teatro Adolfo Mejía
Plaza de la Merced, Centro, Cartagena
The Teatro Adolfo Mejía (formerly Teatro Heredia) is Cartagena's historic theatre — a Neoclassical opera house opened in 1911 and built on the foundations of a 17th-century convent, with a cream-and-gold interior decorated with murals by Colombian artist Enrique Grau and a horseshoe auditorium inspired by the Palais Garnier in Paris.
Walled City (Ciudad Amurallada)
Cartagena, Cartagena, Colombia
The Walled City is Cartagena's UNESCO World Heritage heart — a 13-kilometre circuit of 17th-century stone walls enclosing a colonial district of cobblestone streets, pastel-painted mansions with wooden balconies draped in bougainvillea, churches, plazas, and the atmospheric decay that makes Cartagena the most photogenic colonial city in South America.
Explore history in Cartagena
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.