Houses that remember: more boutique hotels in Cartagena

In Cartagena, houses have voices. Wooden stairs creak, a fountain murmurs in the courtyard and, at siesta time, a ceiling fan turns slowly above walls that have watched four centuries go by. We've already covered Casa del Arzobispado, Santa Clara and Charleston Santa Teresa. Here's another round of boutique hotels, inside and outside the walls, for anyone who wants to sleep in a house with a past.

Houses that remember

Cartagena was built to last. From its founding in 1533, every raid, beginning with Francis Drake's sack of 1586, persuaded the Spanish Crown to wall it in a little more, and its houses were built in stone, with thick walls, high ceilings and courtyards designed for the Caribbean heat. That's why so many still stand: UNESCO declared the city a World Heritage Site in 1984.

Outside the walls another city grew up, a city of freed slaves, carpenters, blacksmiths and fishermen: Getsemaní. Inside, the San Diego neighbourhood grew around the Franciscan convent that gave it its name. Today those two neighbourhoods hold some of the most characterful hotels in town.

This is a city you carry with you. The poet Raúl Gómez Jattin was born here in 1945, grew up between Cartagena and the Sinú valley, and died here in 1997; today he is a cult poet in Colombia. Reading him before you come is a fine way to arrive in the Caribbean with your eyes open.

Some hotels are decorated with antiques, and some hotels are the antique.

I · Inside the walls

Aqueducts and counts

Casa San Agustín

Three restored colonial houses in the walled city, joined around a stretch of the city's old aqueduct that now runs beside the pool. A member of The Leading Hotels of the World and one of the most elegant addresses in the Old City.

All three houses date from the 17th century, and the aqueduct that links them, some three hundred years old, is one of the few surviving pieces of the city's original water system. Original frescoes survive in the library, and the old wooden beams in the ceilings: some hotels are decorated with antiques, and some hotels are the antique.

Don't miss the frescoes in the library.

Casa Pestagua

An aristocratic colonial mansion turned hotel, with courtyards and generous suites. In 2023 it became the first Relais & Châteaux member in Colombia and was named the best historic hotel on the continent.

The Count of Pestagua built it in the 18th century on Calle Santo Domingo, and made it the measure of his fortune. Its great central courtyard, shaded by palms, is still one of the loveliest in the walled city.

Don't miss breakfast in the palm courtyard.

II · San Diego

The neighbourhood that lowers its voice

Hotel Quadrifolio

In San Diego, the quietest corner of the Old City, a colonial house with a handful of individually decorated rooms, a leafy courtyard, a pool and a rooftop hot tub. Its name comes from the four-leaf motif found in colonial architecture.

A few blocks away, on the northern edge of the neighbourhood, are Las Bóvedas: a long row of arches built in the late 18th century between the Santa Clara and Santa Catalina bastions as military storerooms, and later used as dungeons. Today the old cells sell crafts, and at sunset, from the wall opposite, the sea looks exactly as it did to the sentries.

Best for staying in the Old City without the late-night noise.

III · Getsemaní

The other side of the wall

Just outside the walls, Getsemaní is the neighbourhood of murals, street music and Plaza de la Trinidad.

This neighbourhood of artisans changed the country's history. On 11 November 1811, the lanceros of Getsemaní, led by Pedro Romero, seized the cannons on the bastions and pressed the ruling junta until Cartagena declared absolute independence from Spain, the first city in New Granada to do so. The rebellion sounds different today: the picós, huge sound systems that have powered neighbourhood parties since the 1950s, and champeta, born in Cartagena with African and Palenque roots, still keep the city dancing.

Casa del Coliseo

A luxury boutique with murals and a pool.

Casa Lola

A 17th-century colonial house joined to a late-19th-century building, with a rooftop terrace and pools.

Best for living Getsemaní by night and walking home.

Epilogue

The walk home

From any of these houses, the night is best done on foot: inside the walls if you're staying in the Old City or San Diego, across into the Old City if you're in Getsemaní. At that hour the façades lose their colour and gain their shadows, and the city looks once more like the one its poets imagined.

For the first part of the list, read boutique hotels in the Old City.