Tag: UNESCO World Heritage site

Cartagena’s Tourist Area

The guidebooks call it “The Old City,” or “The Walled City,” and the locals merely call it “El Centro” but either way they’re talking about a beautiful place to visit. Cartagena’s tourist area is a compelling mess of narrow streets filled with colorful buildings, art, crafts and people. Visitors to the city flock here for many reasons.

The Walled City of Cartagena

 The exterior of the old city is marked by an old stone wall, which makes for a great walk overlooking the sea at dusk when the blazing sun isn’t burning you to a crisp. The wall runs for 11km and encompasses the port and the old city, including Getsemani.

Horse drawn carriages mix with taxis in the roads, and tourists work around vendors on the sidewalks. Stroll around and see beautiful old buildings, modern art sculptures, craft stalls and lovely plazas.

Cartagena Teatro
Teatro in Old City Cartagena
Get Lost in the Streets

I visited the old town multiple times over the course of my stay in this city, and “lost” every time, but I always saw something new and lovely. For me, getting lost in the streets of Cartagena’s tourist area is a day well spent. I loved wandering the streets taking countless photos of the gorgeous surroundings.

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Cartagena City Tour

Cartagena is a city with a rich history and a lot of sights to see.  Since I only have my weekends to be a tourist, I did a Cartagena city tour yesterday to maximize time. The city tour was going to hit at least two of the Cartagena must sees which would have been difficult to get to on my own. City tours are a great introduction to a new place, and especially good for a solo traveler!

Booking the tour

I booked the 65000 peso (approx $28 CDN) tour through a hostel in the old town, El Viajero. I met the tour guide at the clock tower at 1:30 pm. The plan was to see a couple of the big sights and get a ride around the city to boot.

I didn’t know until the morning of the tour that the barrio was going to have a party that day. It turned out to be a good time to leave though because the sound system was blaring from 10am and was still going when I got home and then some! I wore ear plugs from 10a-12noon when I left for the tour.

Slow Down

So this is the Caribbean and nothing moves fast.  About 12 of us loaded into the bus and waited.  Then we drove around for a bit and returned to the clock tower to pick up some latecomers. Then we drove around some more and picked up other tourists. Most of those were in Bocagrande, a big tourist section on the beach. Bocagrande has a lot of big hotels and fast food restaurants and I am glad I got to see it on the ride because it confirmed what I thought: I don’t need to hang out there.

Cartagena City Tour Bus
Our bus for the city tour
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