Cartagena, Columbia, Thursday Morning

Stephanie, our friend from Cruise Critic had arranged a private tour via Lee Miles for Cartagena. Our tour group of nine was us, Stephanie, Gary, Bonnie, Rich, Merce, Kelly and David. Lee arranged for a driver, tour guide and air-conditioned vehicle and while he didn't go on the tour with us he did meet us at the dock that morning to introduce himself and our tour guide. In addition to our tour, Lee also arranged one for eight other friends from our CC roll-call but unlike other tours, we never ran into their group.



Our first stop was La Popa Monastery which had a lovely view of the city as it sits on a 500-ft/150-m hill. The Monastery is 400 years old and built on the remains of an razed Indian temple. Inside there is a statue of the Virgin of Candelaria who is said to have delivered the city from disease and pirates.



We were then driven to San Felipe Fortress which is considered one of the most formidable defensive structures ever built by the Spanish military. Constructed around the perimeter of Cartagena, it stands on the Hill of San Lazaro, overlooking the Caribbean Sea.Unfortunately you have a long walk up to the Fortress and given the heat of the day and other factors we elected just to view it from below.



The statue I'm standing next to is of Blas de Lezo, the one-armed, one-legged, one eye hero of Cartagena's successful defense against British Admiral Vernon in 1741.



We then drove to Plaza Bolivar in old town. This colonial plaza is surrounded by the Cathedral, the Palace of the Inquisition and a gold museum.



The square was recently decorated with the sculpture Mujer Reclinada (Reclining Woman), a gift from Colombian artist Fernando Botero.


The Palace of the Inquisition was very interesting and had some interesting historical exhibits that were air-conditioned.





The Church of San Pedro Claver was also a stop and then it was on to the Gold Museum with its collection of Pre-Columbian gold work. The Gold Museum was small and actually inside a huge air-conditioned vault.



Our last stop of the day before returning to the ship around 12:30pm was Las Bovedas, the dungeons, which are now used as tourist shops. The photos below though were taken outside the Palace of the Inquisition as we didn't photograph the shops. During our 20 minute stop at the shops Randy bought a shot glass that said Cartagena and looked like stained glass and a hand tooled leather belt.