Plaza San DiegoOne of the most romantic and underrated plazas in the Walled City. Plaza San Diego has a more relaxed, intimate feel than Santo Domingo or Bolívar, tucked away enough that it still surprises people who stumble into it. The surrounding architecture is beautiful, the pace is slower, and the whole square has a quality that makes you want to stay longer than you planned.
The plaza is anchored by some of the best dining in the city. Casa Manglares is a standout, particularly for appetizers and cocktails, and one of our personal favorites. Right next door in the Santa Clara, 1621 is one of the finest dining experiences in Cartagena and consistently at the top of our best restaurants list. Don Juan is another option nearby that draws a loyal local crowd. Personally we haven't been wowed by the food, but plenty of people we respect swear by it, so make of that what you will. There's also a spot on the corner for cold beers, which sounds simple until you realize how hard that is to find in a city that isn't particularly beer-centric. And Percimon, Nataly's favorite frozen yogurt shop in Cartagena, is right there. Get a scoop, take it upstairs to the second floor, and spend twenty minutes looking down at the plaza watching the city go by. That view alone is worth the stop.
While you're in the area, walk into the Santa Clara hotel. It was originally a 17th-century convent built in 1621 for the Poor Clares order of nuns, and the interior garden is open to the public and genuinely beautiful. The hotel bar is worth a visit for a drink, but also for a curiosity: inside the bar there is an entrance to a crypt that descends below the building. It's subtle and easy to miss, and just spooky enough to be memorable.
The nuns of Santa Clara were among the first Europeans in Cartagena to prepare and sell cacao drinks, mixing cacao with cinnamon, anise, and cloves following recipes that became part of the city's culinary identity. That tradition lives on at Magno Chocolates, just around the corner. We've written the full history of cacao in Cartagena here if you want to go deeper before your visit.
In the center of the plaza, local artisans and informal vendors sell handmade souvenirs and antiques. About half a block toward La Serrezuela there's an antique shop worth poking your head into if it happens to be open. Plaza de las Bellas Artes is right next door, and a popular cevichería nearby draws a regular crowd. All of it within a few minutes walk of each other, in one of the prettiest corners of the Walled City.
