Inside the Tunnels and Cannon Terraces of San Felipe, Cartagena

What you walk through inside the fort

The fort is a wedge of coral stone stacked in terraces up San Lázaro hill, and you climb it on zig-zag ramps that double back on themselves. Batteries of black cannon stand out over the city from the upper platform, and the Colombian flag flies from the summit.

The tunnel galleries are the other half of the visit. They run inside the rock below the terraces, lit by whatever light drops through the grated shafts overhead.

There is no café and no restaurant on the ramparts. Go up without a guide and the map handed over with the ticket is your only commentary: the terraces give you the fort's shape and the batteries, and not a word about the siege they were built for.

Zapatos Viejos before the climb

Monumento a los Zapatos Viejos sits at the foot of the fort, a pair of oversized bronze ankle boots, scuffed and laceless, on a low plinth in a small paved park. The terraced fort rises directly behind them, and this is the widest shot of the castle anyone gets. Take it on the way up.

The bronze is Héctor Lombana's replacement for Tito Lombana's 1957 original, and it honours the poet Luis Carlos López and his 'A mi ciudad nativa'. The park has no gate and no ticket, and entry is gratis. Only a few people fit in frame with the boots, so a coach party has to photograph in two shifts.

Tickets, guides and group arrivals

Full entry is $38,000 COP. Colombians pay $33,000 COP, and ages 6 to 13 and students pay $16,000 COP. The ticket office sets group and school tariffs.

Coaches and shuttles drop at the foot of the ramp, and the fort takes groups all day. A guide or an audio guide costs extra and is arranged at the fort's own ticket window; licensed guides wait at the entrance for walk-up parties. Settle that before you start up the ramp.

Buying at the door works on any day the fort is open. Private guided days that take in the fort run seven days a week, so book one ahead if you want the guide and the transport arranged for you.

Best time to go

The official Fortificaciones hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Sunday. Take the first hour of that. The stone terraces are fully exposed, so carry water up with you.

The last hour is worth having for the floodlighting. The walls are lit after dark, and the terrace that faces them opens mid-afternoon.

Pairing the fort with La Popa

Convento de Santa Cruz de la Popa is on the city's highest hill, a whitewashed Augustinian cloister around an arcaded courtyard with bougainvillea and a well. The drop is a full 360 degrees, over the bay, the Bocagrande towers and the fort below. The convent and the castle are the standard pairing on a half-day run.

Entry is $11,000 COP for adults and $8,000 COP for children. The gate is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, and minibuses can drive the summit road. Take a taxi that waits and negotiate $35,000 COP for the round trip. Do not walk up and do not take a moto: the hillside road is quiet and robberies are reported on it.

Arriving off a cruise ship

Port Oasis Ecopark sits inside the fence at the Cartagena Cruise Terminal, 10,000 square metres of tropical garden walkway with flamingos, macaws and toucans loose among the palms and water channels, white cruise hulls showing over the treeline. More than 700 animals of 74 species live there, placed by environmental authorities, and the park holds an OAS award. The walkway is wide enough to take a whole ship's worth of passengers on the way to the coaches, and you cover it in 20 minutes.

Only arriving or embarking cruise passengers can get in, and it is included at no charge. Without a ship there is no entry, so do not plan a separate trip to it.

The siege explained indoors

Museo Naval del Caribe (Calle San Juan de Dios 3-62) covers the part the bare ramparts leave out. Vernon's 1741 siege is laid out in models and maps inside a two-storey colonial building with deep wooden balconies around a courtyard, among scale galleons, a replica bronze cannon and a submarine section. It opens daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Adults pay $24,000 COP; students pay $10,000 COP, and children and military pay $5,000 COP. Guided group visits are bookable by phone.

Museo Histórico de Cartagena de Indias (Plaza de Bolívar) occupies the Palacio de la Inquisición, behind a baroque limestone doorway with twin columns. A stone denunciation window with a small iron grille sits in the side wall, and timber-balconied galleries run round the inner courtyard. The city-history floor upstairs is the useful half; the torture-instrument display downstairs is the one that draws the queue. Hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays and holidays. Entry is $24,000 COP, or $20,000 COP for children, students, teachers and seniors, and the last Sunday of the month is free.

Museo del Oro Zenú (Plaza de Bolívar) is free, small and air-conditioned, a dark gallery of spotlit Zenú gold filigree ear ornaments and ceramic funerary urns against black walls. You are through it in 20 minutes, which makes it the recovery stop after the fort's heat. The guided visits cost nothing; the English ones go at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., with more frequent Spanish ones through the day. It closes Mondays, opens 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, with last entry an hour before closing.

Ábaco Libros y Café (Calle de la Mantilla) has run as a bookshop since 2002: floor-to-ceiling dark timber shelves in a small colonial room, a short marble counter with an espresso machine, jazz playing low. Read up on the sieges here. It opens 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday, takes no reservations, and holds two to four people comfortably. Prices sit at $$.

Henry's and La Serrezuela

Henry's - Rooftop San Felipe (Cl. 30 #17-140, Pie del Cerro) is a two-minute walk from the fort gate, on the third-floor terrace of the Portal de San Felipe mall. It is fitted out in industrial black steel and timber with beach-style seating, and it looks straight across at the floodlit fortress walls. It opens daily from 3 p.m., the kitchen does craft beer and burgers, and prices run $$$. The terrace is large, takes families and absorbs groups. Reserve ahead for a rail-side table at sunset.

La Serrezuela is the air-conditioned fallback when midday heat ends the castle visit early. A 19th-century wooden bullring stands preserved whole under a glass roof, its circular tiered gallery rebuilt as balconies of shops, and a water-and-light show plays on the old arena floor at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Walking in is free and the routes are step-free. Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The third-floor scale model of the walled city is free, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and it orients you before or after the fort.

Baluarte Santo Domingo and Las Bóvedas

Baluarte Santo Domingo – Escuela Taller is a restaurant built on top of a seaward bastion of the city walls, with cannon embrasures at ankle height and tables facing the Caribbean swell breaking on the rocks below. It is a training restaurant, staffed by Escuela Taller Cartagena graduates from the city's poorer barrios. Café del Mar held this bastion until its eviction in September 2024, and the current name is the one to book and ask under. It opens Monday to Sunday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., prices run $$, and free public cultural programming keeps part of the space open to all.

Las Bóvedas (between the Santa Catalina and Santa Clara bastions) is the same military engineering turned into shops: 23 whitewashed barrel-vaulted arches set into the ramparts, each arch hung with woven mochila bags and striped hammocks. Browsing is gratis, and mochilas and hammocks run $$ to $$$. The colonnade is open with no door policy, and the aisle inside each vault is single-file. ETCAR and the culture ministry are reclaiming individual vaults through the courts, so the exact set of shops trading shifts from year to year.

Walking on to Getsemaní

Parque del Centenario lies between the walls and Getsemaní, and it reopened in December 2025 after a long closure and major works. Sloths curl in the crowns of the tall trees and iguanas cross the paths. A new lit fountain and rows of small bookseller kiosks came in with the relandscaping. A guide who knows which trees the sloths use will find them faster than you will, and authorities have been relocating some of the mammals to care centres.

Plaza de la Trinidad (Getsemaní) is 15 minutes' walk from the fort, an ochre church facade with twin bell towers facing a small square. People sit on the church steps after dark, and charcoal grills and arepa carts smoke at the corners under strings of bulbs. The square is busiest after 7 p.m., when the carts set up. Street food starts at $10,000 COP. Bring cash and agree the price with the cart before you order. The church interior is a place of worship.

Is it worth the climb

It suits anyone who wants to walk the galleries and the batteries in person, and it costs you a hill climb in full sun with water carried in. The fort and La Popa together fill a half day.

Before you go

The Museo del Oro Zenú is the one stop here that shuts a weekday, on Mondays. Book the rail-side table at Henry's for sunset, and fix the waiting taxi for La Popa before you set off.

See the Cartagena guide and the Cartagena hotel search.