One Week in Old Cartagena: Offbeat Plan
A full week covers the walled city, Getsemani, San Basilio de Palenque, San Diego and Manga, a second museum pass and a chiva night, then leaves Day 7 open for whatever the heat cut short earlier. Days 1-6 follow the same spine as our 6 day version ; Day 7 is a genuine flex day before departure, and it lands during the Fiestas de Noviembre window, 10-15 Nov 2026, if your dates line up.
Book these before you go
- Book a walled city walking tour , better with a guide who knows which bastion beats Cafe del Mar
- Compare Old City and Getsemani rates before you book, rooms fill fast in dry season and during Fiestas de Noviembre
- Book Castillo San Felipe tickets to skip the gate line in peak hours
- Book a San Basilio de Palenque day trip , fixed-departure group tours fill ahead
- Book a chiva party bus night , shared evening slots fill first
| Day | Focus | Travel time | Daily cost (COP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Walled city, Las Bovedas, quiet sunset wall | Walkable, no transfers | ~120,000-180,000 |
| 2 | La Popa, Palace of Inquisition, Castillo San Felipe | Taxi to La Popa ~15 min, fort ~10 min | ~150,000-220,000 |
| 3 | Getsemani street art, slave-trade history, rooftop bars | Walkable from the Old City | ~130,000-200,000 |
| 4 | San Basilio de Palenque day trip | ~1-1.5 hr each way by tour van | ~300,000-350,000 |
| 5 | San Diego balconies, Manga’s quiet streets | Walkable + short taxi to Manga ~10 min | ~110,000-170,000 |
| 6 | Gold Museum, Naval Museum, chiva party bus night | Walkable by day, chiva pickup at hotel | ~150,000-230,000 |
| 7 | Flex morning, Las Bovedas shopping, departure | Walkable, taxi to CTG ~15-20 min | ~100,000-150,000 |
Day 1: The Walled City, Las Bovedas and a Sunset Without the Crowd
Land at Rafael Nunez International (CTG), 15-20 minutes from the walls, and take the fixed-rate kiosk taxi, roughly 20,000-30,000 COP, to a hotel inside the walls or in Getsemani. Walk the Old City’s plazas, cathedral, Plaza Bolivar, then Las Bovedas, originally munitions storage and later a dungeon before the hammock sellers moved in. As evening cools, skip Cafe del Mar’s packed rooftop for a stretch of wall 200 meters further along.
Day 2: La Popa’s Morning View, the Inquisition’s Darker Rooms, San Felipe at Last Light
Start early at Convento de la Popa, roughly 4,500-11,000 COP (sources disagree, confirm at the gate). Back inside the walls by midday, visit the Palace of the Inquisition, roughly 19,000-24,000 COP, where the lower rooms hold the actual instruments the Spanish Inquisition’s Cartagena tribunal used. Save Castillo San Felipe de Barajas for late afternoon, entrance a disputed 38,000-50,000 COP.
Day 3: Getsemani’s Street Art, Sober History and Unmarked Rooftop Bars
Getsemani’s murals trace to Calle Sierpe, where the first pieces appeared before the Cartagena Urban Culture Festival, running since 2013. Walk it in the morning, then reckon with why it and the walls above it exist: Cartagena held Spain’s monopoly on the slave trade into Spanish South America for two centuries, an estimated 120,000-plus enslaved Africans passed through this port. A Four Seasons opened here on 2 April 2026, a marker of the neighborhood’s fast gentrification.
Day 4: San Basilio de Palenque, the First Free Black Town in the Americas
About 50km southeast, San Basilio de Palenque is where escaped enslaved people built the first free Black settlement in the Americas, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage site with its own language, Palenquero, still spoken today. Organized tours run roughly 300,000-350,000 COP per person including transport, lunch and a guide.
Day 5: San Diego’s Balconies and Manga’s Quiet Streets
San Diego carries the densest run of overhanging colonial balconies in the walled city, worth a slow morning walk before the heat sets in. In the afternoon, cross the short bridge to Manga, a quiet residential island with a handful of boutique hotels.
Day 6: A Second Museum Pass and a Chiva Party Bus Night
Use the day for the Gold Museum’s pre-Columbian collection and the Naval Museum’s history of the port that once moved Spanish gold and enslaved people through the same walls you’ve been walking. In the evening, book a shared chiva, roughly 50,000 COP per seat, or about 650,000 COP for a private full chiva.
Day 7: A Real Flex Day Before Departure
Use the morning for whatever the heat pushed off an earlier day, a second pass through the cathedral, a slower Getsemani coffee, or simply sleeping past sunrise for once. Spend an hour bargaining properly at Las Bovedas rather than grabbing souvenirs on the way past, and agree roughly 8,000 COP up front if a palenquera offers a photo, that’s her livelihood, not a free photo-op. If your dates land inside the Fiestas de Noviembre window, 10-15 Nov 2026, treat the festival’s own street program as the day’s real event rather than fighting it for a museum slot. Head to CTG with a 15-20 minute buffer for the taxi.