Cartagena

Cartagena surrounds visitors with colour, walls and sea air. Colonial architecture, Caribbean rhythm, balconies, plazas and fortified history give the city a theatrical sense of place unlike any other in South America.

Cartagena de Indias was founded in 1533 on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and became the principal port through which the silver of the Spanish Empire left South America. To defend it, Spain ringed the old town with some eleven kilometres of stone walls and raised the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas on a hill above the bay. The walled city and its fortifications are listed by UNESCO, and they survive remarkably complete.

Inside the walls, the districts of El Centro and San Diego form a grid of colonial houses painted ochre, indigo and coral, their wooden balconies heavy with flowers. Getsemaní, just outside, was once the artisans’ quarter and is now the liveliest part of town, with murals, small plazas and evening street life. Offshore lie the Rosario Islands, a national park of coral reefs and clear water within a short boat ride of the city.

Cartagena is hot all year, with temperatures close to 30°C and little seasonal change. The driest and breeziest months run from December to April, when the trade winds take the edge off the humidity; this is high season, busiest over Christmas, New Year and Easter Week. January is the city’s cultural month, with the Cartagena Music Festival filling churches and plazas with classical music and the Hay Festival bringing writers to the old town.

The rainy season runs from roughly May to November, with October usually the wettest month; showers tend to be short and heavy, and the city is noticeably quieter. November has its own colour with the independence celebrations, when parades and costumed processions take over the streets. In any season, the early morning and the hour before sunset are the times to walk the walls, when the sea breeze rises and the light turns gold.

The newest grand address is Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Cartagena, opened in 2026 in Getsemaní, facing Parque Centenario at the edge of the walled city. Inside the walls, Sofitel Legend Santa Clara Cartagena occupies a seventeenth-century convent of the Poor Clares in San Diego, its cloister garden at the heart of the hotel, while Casa San Agustín brings together restored colonial houses on a quiet street in the old town.

LVXVRY books Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Cartagena through Four Seasons Preferred Partner and Sofitel Legend Santa Clara through Accor Preferred — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges each programme attaches to the stay. For Casa San Agustín, LVXVRY advises on and arranges the stay directly, together with days out to the Rosario Islands.