Cartagena.

I just came back from a trip to Colombia, one of the places I visited was Cartagena, and I fell in love with its romantic and charming 'Historic Old Walled City' with its spanish colonial architecture and colorful painted buildings. It is an unique city filled with sun, sea and history, divided by 17th century walls into the 'Historic Old City' and a 'Modern city'. Cartagena was founded in 1533 by the spanish Conquistador Don Pedro de Heredia and thanks to it's strategic location soon became one of few south american ports to export the gold and silver back to Spain and was also the main port for the infamous slave trade, with the first ship arriving in 1564 to send slaves all over south america.

French, english and pirates all attacked the city. Sir Francis Drake captured the town in 1586 and burnt down most of the city.

In 1985 was declared by UNESCO 'Historical Patrimony of Humanity'. The San Fernando de Barajas Castle is another historic building that I'll be posting about next week.

It is a lot more to say about this romantic getaway where at night all the colorful buildings are covered in a golden glow lighting and where you can dine 'al fresco' listening to local musicians ...

but I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves. Please take a moment to watch the video at the bottom of this post.

xoxo

Mariafer.

PS. Thanks so much Patricia and Alvaro for being such a wonderful hostess and for taking the time to show us round....

One thing that caught my attention was the door knobs...