Boutique hotels in Cartagena: twenty colonial houses, side by side

The ledger carries no room prices: a room price changes with the date and the size of the party, so it gives the house, the rooms and the walk instead. Twelve houses in Centro, four in San Diego, four in Getsemaní. Pick what you need: rows that do not fit drop out and their numbers fade on the plan. Point at a row or a number to see its walk to the Clock Tower. Areas beyond the old town: where to stay in Cartagena.

Here the word mostly means a converted house. The hotels describe the same parts: a courtyard, sometimes two, with the rooms on the floors around it and a garden or a pool in the middle; balconies on the street; and, at eight of the twenty, a terrace or a bar on the roof. Bastión names its zaguán, the entrance hall from the street, among the colonial parts it kept.

Few rooms, with exceptions. Of the eleven houses that state a number, six have fewer than 20 rooms: 8 suites at Hotel Quadrifolio, 11 rooms at Casa del Arzobispado. The two former convents are the large ones: 86 rooms and suites at the Charleston Santa Teresa and 126 at the Sofitel Legend Santa Clara.

Stairs and lifts. Marie Real, Bastión, Casa Don Luis and OSH list an elevator; at Casa Pestagua the elevator serves one suite only; the Sofitel has 3 accessible rooms on the ground floor with wide doors and roll-in showers. Casa Lorenza states that it is not adapted for reduced mobility. At the other houses, ask before you book if stairs matter.

Old, as the hotels date themselves. Bastión gives the 16th century; Charleston Santa Teresa, Santa Clara, Quadrifolio, Casa del Arzobispado, Casa San Agustín and Casa Lola the 17th; Casa Pestagua and Casa Don Luis the 18th.

This guide counts an hour as one of the hot hours when the street shade feels hotter than 35 °C in still air, its own line, not a health authority's. By that line 13:00 is a hot hour in every month. Short walks in the shade are fine then; the long ones wait, and the hotel’s pool is where the hours go.

13 of the twenty houses state a pool. Where the hotel says where it is, it is on the roof or the top floor (Charleston Santa Teresa, Bastión, Townhouse's two plunge pools, one of OSH's two), in the courtyard (Casa Amanzi), in the middle of the house (Casa Pestagua) or in the former vegetable garden of the convent (Sofitel). Across the old town and Getsemaní, about half the places on Booking.com list a pool.

Every hour: Cartagena weather. Which months suit which trip: best time to visit.

Eight houses state a rooftop or a roof terrace. What differs is who else is up there. Townhouse runs a rooftop cocktail bar and diner, “the first hotel in the city to open its rooftop to the public”; it sells no day pass, and its two plunge pools up there are open to anyone who orders a drink or food. At the Charleston Santa Teresa, La Terraza is for hotel guests only. Cartagena Royal serves dinner on its roof, OSH and Casa Lola run rooftop bars.

The sun sets over the sea to the west. The wall instead, and the sunset on your date: sunset in Cartagena and its rooftop bars.

Bars cluster on the squares of Centro and around Plaza de la Trinidad in Getsemaní. In 2024 the city's environmental authority suspended 9 venues in Getsemaní and 5 in the Centro Histórico for excess noise (El Universal).

The ledger narrows that to the house: the bars and clubs mapped within 100 m of each hotel, about a block. Eight of the placed houses have none mapped that close, and the filter shows them. The map misses bars, and a hotel’s own bar is not counted, so the count says where bars are mapped, not how loud a street is.

From every placed house the Clock Tower is 3 to 12 minutes on foot at 4 km/h. After dark: Getsemaní, is Cartagena safe, nightlife.

The southern half of the walls: the cathedral, Plaza de Bolívar, Plaza Santo Domingo. Houses run from the Clock Tower outward. The quarter: the walled city, things to do.

The northern half of the walls, toward Las Bóvedas, with fewer bars mapped than Centro or Getsemaní.

Across the Camellón de los Mártires from the Clock Tower: murals, small squares and bars. Street by street: Getsemaní.

1. Does my room have a window? Old houses have inner rooms. Casa India Catalina and Casa Lorenza both list room types without windows.
2. How many stairs, and is there a lift? Five sites mention an elevator, one of them for a single suite; the Sofitel names accessible rooms on the ground floor; Casa Lorenza says it is not adapted for reduced mobility.
3. Who uses the roof? Townhouse opens its rooftop to the public; the Charleston Santa Teresa keeps La Terraza for hotel guests.
4. Where is the pool? On the roof, on an upper floor or in the courtyard: the entries above say where each house puts it, where the hotel says so.
5. Is the spa in the house? At Casa Pestagua it is a walk away, at the sister hotel.

The nine houses with a Booking.com link are the ones listed there through this guide’s partner; the link goes to the hotel’s Booking.com page, with rooms, dates and policies before you pay. The others link to their own site. Beach towers and island nights: where to stay in Cartagena.