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It built on the ruins
of the old Church of The Mercy (1625) to commemorate the Centennial
of the Independence in 1911. In 1998 it was restored under the
direction of the architect cartagenero Alberto Samudio Trallero
as arts center of musical and scenic arts. Theater built in the
shape of horseshoe with boxes and balconies divided by lattices
of zero, that laces seem, originally they served for ventilation.
Stairs and sculptures of Italian marble with curtain of Mouth
and ceiling beautifully created by the artist cartagenero Enrique
Grau.
It has been restored with all the modern norms of
Theater.
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Convento de la Popa
The hill receives this name because to the navigators seemed
similar to the stern of an embarkation. The hill was a forest
that served of refuge to the black untamed. From the top of the
historic hill all the city can be seen. At the beginning of the
17th century in the peak, two parents Agustinos built a cloister
that received the name of "Convent of Our Lady of the Candelaria".
Subsequently, it was setting of fights and served of headquarters
and bunker.
In the subsequent part of the convent there is a rough place
called "The leap of the rascal" and, according to the
legend, the first superior of the convent threw a male called
flock of goats "Buziraco", object of worship and adoration
of the black. Schedule of attention: Monday to Saturday of 8:00
to.m. to 5:00 p.m.
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Convent of San Diego
The founder Fray Sebastián
of Humilias acquired a house with charity that obtained of the
neighbors and became a convent, to what helped the same lending
them their slaves and donating the materials. Subsequently, the
final construction of the cloister built in the high thing of
the Jaqueyes was initiated where inhabited the poor people socorrida
by the religious. Inside their mission, the Franciscans favored
to many poor of different zones of the city and they gave lodging
to the soldiers of the fleets and armed when they needed it. The
Convent was based on the year 1608. After the desamortización
of goods of the Church decreed by Tomás Cipriano of Mosquera,
served as jail and electric plant. At present, and after to be
restored, was installed in it the "School of Fine Arts"
of this city. The exterior walls are conserved, except for the
facades that were substituted by the artist cartagenero Mr. Luis
Felipe Jasper, inside the style neogótico. Locating: Neighborhood
of San Diego, park of San Diego with street of the Vaults and
Street the cemetery.
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Convent of Santa Clara
This building was founded in 1617, colonial
epoch, and has been Convent, Hospital of Charity, House of Orphans,
School of Instructors and University Hospital. To the colonial
epoch they correspond the cloister in two floors with their central
patio, the interior rooms, the conventual temple of a single room
and the other dependences of the convent, as were the gardens
and the cemetery. On this they were built, in the republic and
in the modernity, the existing additions when was University Hospital,
and its last floor. The buildings for the sick correspond to the
republican epoch. The one that looks toward the street of the
Pastorate, of rich architecture, has been attributed to Gastón
Lelarge. That of the Calle del Torno, more recent and poorer,
responds to a subsequent intervention, in which a floor was added
to the original convent and all the walls remodeled facade on
this street copying timidly the other facade of Lelarge.
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Ermita de El Cabrero
At present, become one of the better hotels of Cartagena, beautifully
restored, preserve all the republican and colonial style that has
marked its history and also conserves part of the original walls
of the Convent. It is located in the Park of San Diego, occupies
the whole block that gives to the Calle del Torno, al Paseo de la
Muralla y Calles del Curato y Stuart. Ermita de El Cabrero
Chapel
in which the remainders of the famous poet they are conserved
and President Mr. Rafael Núñez, author of the letter
of the Colombian national anthem and under whose Government devised
the Constitution of 1886 that was in force to the year of 1994,
thanks to the done modifications by the Constituent National Assembly.
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| Hermitage of Our Lady of the Mercy
It founded in 1617 by the Reverend General Father Fray Francisco
of Rivera. It was built on the northwest part of the city, in
the same place where an old hermitage was found known like El
Humilladero. Depended on the Mercedarios of the province of Lima
(Peru). A century after their foundation, Cartagena suffers the
severity of the seas of tappet, that caused large damages in some
buildings by which the Engineers Juan of Blacksmith and Tomás
of Village, they proposed the construction of Walls that unites
the bulwarks of the Cross with that of Holy Catalina for the defense
of these buildings. In the 19th century the building suffered
the onslaughts of the War of the Independence. Already in republican
epoch became School and later in Upper Court of Justice. At the
beginning of this century the chapel was remodeled and the convent,
the first one was to become Theater Municipal and the convent
in Law Courts. The Theater has been restored totally being becoming
the present Theater Heredia and in the convent the University
functions Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Locating: Centro Amurallado - Plaza
de la Merced.
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Iglesia Catedral
Cartagena of Indies had its first Cathedral in the year 1537,
in the present Street of the Coliseum, being a modest building
of palm and canes consumed by a terrifying fire in 1552. The sinister
one obliged the authorities to do another construction with more
lasting materials as the stone and the wood, in the place that
at present occupies. The high altar is a work completely carved
in wood with finished golden.
The older teacher of the city, Simón González,
did its original plans and directed great part of the construction,
which elapsed between the years 1577 and 1612.
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Church of the Santísima Trinity Dates from the middle
of the 17th century. It is simple, its picturesque facade with
its tower brings us the memory of Holy Sunday.
Since its small square the movement of our independence was gestated.
The modernity, again, has affected enough the temple, causing
disappearing all its original structure.
The parish, that had to its charge in some moment the direction
of the School Biffi, built a school in the subsequent patio of
the Church for instruction of the youths of the neighborhood,
continuing its educational and social work to our days.
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Iglesia de San Agustín
It founded in 1580 by Fray Jerónimo Guevara. Basically
was a Convent, later military headquarters in various moments
of the wars of independence and since the start of the republican
life. Today, totally reformed, is the University of Cartagena,
although of the original structure only remains the extensive
cloister (transformed completely), the arches and the columns.
It is good to emphasize that this Convent was very important for
the history of the city by the events and personalities that have
come to visit.
Locating: Centro Amurallado, Calle de la Universidad, Antigua
calle de San Agustín con calle de la Soledad.
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Iglesia Santo Toribio de Mongrovejo
In 1665 began to build the Church with charity that gave the
neighbors of the Plaza of the Jagueyes (today plaza Fdez. Madrid),
being finished the construction, after different intents eclipsed
by the lack of resources, in the year 1732.
It is a lovely Church although of modest dimensions, that, unfortunately,
has been victim of the modernism suffering transformations that
have damaged it notably.
Locating: Centro Amurallado: San Diego, calle del Sargento Mayor
con Calle del Curato Esquina.
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Church and Convent of San Pedro Claver
The Church has received diverse names through the history as
that of San Juan of God, then that of San Ignacio of Loyola (Owner
of the Company of Jesus) and in our days that of San Pedro Claver.
The original Church was built in the year 1580 and then reconstructed
in the 17th century.
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The effort of the parents Jesuits
has permitted to conserve the place with its original structures.
Nevertheless, they have not lacked the reforms: Monseigneur Eugenio
Biffi, after saving the church of the abandonment and the ruin,
built the high altar with marble imported of Italy.
The French architect Gastón Lelarge, built the present
dome of the temple. In the high altar the mortal remainders of
San Pedro Claver, who gave his life to the redemption of the black
slaves arrived at Cartagena, they called him "the apostle
of the slaves". Without any doubts the Church of San Pedro
Claver is that of greater architectural importance of Cartagena
by its solidity and esthetics. The construction of the convent
was ordered by a the King Felipe III of Spain, October 25, 1603.
Through the history, the life of the convent and of the church
is full of difficulties:
• In 1677 the Jesuits they were expelled of the Indies by the
King Felipe III, defendants to wanted to form a State inside the
Spanish State remaining abandoned the buildings.
• Entering the republican period, the government of the President
José Hilario López, expelled them of Colombia in
the year of 1850, and in 1861 proceeded of equal form the government
of the general one Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera.
There have been different uses of the Convent:
First it served as a hospital for the poor with the name of San
Sebastián and later hospital of the charity. It also served
as headquarters to the republican troops being converted later
in Naval Hospital to the decade of the years 80. In our days in
the subsequent part of the Convent the Naval Museum of the Caribbean
functions, under whose managements the restoration of the historic
place is carried out.
Schedule of attention: Monday to Friday
Saturday, Sundays and holidays of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
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Church and Convent
of Santo Domingo
The construction of the two religious centers was
initiated in the year 1579 and was prolonged until 1698, when
the work was totally finished.
In the present Plaza of Santo Domingo the Inquisition, in charge
of the Padres Dominicos, placed the blaze in which they were burned
live five heretics, during the 17th century.
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Two legends exist
around the Church and the convent:
The first one is that the chorus of the church will collapse in
a holy Thursday;
the second is the legend of the Christ of the Expiration, which
since 1754, when stopped an epidemic of smallpox that whipped to
the city, continues working miracles, according to the popular tradition,
an angel sent by God took he forms human and he was presented the
Dominicans saying that he was statutory, Saying, creator of woodcarvings;
in a coincidental way, the monks found in the nearby beaches of
the Caribbean Sea a beam that miraculously grew until having the
measures that desired the statutory one to do a Holy one Christ
of the Expiration.
Since then, the man was enclosed in the room that gave him in the
convent until the friars missed by the silence of several days,
they knocked down the door, finding the beautiful one Christ, which
was placed in the high altar of the Church, and is conserved intact,
as since the first day in spite of the step of the centuries. In
our days the devotion toward the Christ continues in the Church
of Santo Domingo, renewing it the thousands of faithful, Monday
of each week.
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'Secret'
Colombian city gets rediscovered
A building boom fueled by tourism is remaking Cartagena. Some worry
the old Caribbean port's charm will suffer.
By Andrea Alegria and Chris Kraul, Special to the
L.A. Times
February 11, 2008
LA
BOQUILLA, COLOMBIA -- A few years ago, impoverished fisherman
Marcial Ortega could barely afford to feed his 14 children, much
less buy them shoes. But now his worries are over. A beneficiary
of this region's building boom, he is selling his half-acre beachfront
lot and cabanas this month for a cool $1 million.
The
63-year-old Ortega held out for years, impassively listening to
fast-talking developers bid up the price of his seaside plot.
But declining fish stocks, rising taxes and nonstop harassment
by developers finally convinced him it was time to leave this
tiny fishing community a few miles up the coast from the Spanish
colonial city of Cartagena. He sold to Spanish developers who
plan to build a high-rise apartment building.
"I
had to find a way out of here," said Ortega, the concrete-block
house he soon will vacate nearly overtaken by encroaching high-rises.
"Now
I'll have peace of mind, buy my wife a nice house and give my
children things I didn't have, like an education."
The
price fetched by Ortega's property reflects the frenzied real
estate market in Cartagena, an increasingly popular destination
for foreign tourists and retirees. A decade ago, the charms of
this fortress city were the well-kept secret of wealthy Colombians
and venturesome foreigners who knew that Cartagena was relatively
immune to the killings and kidnappings that elsewhere marked Colombia's
civil war.
Construction
frenzy
Colombia's
security and economy have improved significantly since President
Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, and that has helped ignite a
construction boom. Twenty luxury residential towers were built
last year and more than 60 are on the drawing board, including
what would be Colombia's tallest building. Seventeen projects
are to be situated along the four-mile stretch of beach between
the walled city and La Boquilla.
Two-thirds
of the units being built or planned are marketed to foreign retirees
and investors, who have begun to take up residence in this breezy
Caribbean city. Long anathema to U.S. hotel chains because of
Colombia's notorious violence, Cartagena is slated for new resort
hotels bearing the Marriott and Donald Trump brands.
Fueling
the construction is the increasing flow of tourists, who are feeding
the pool of potential buyers. The number of international visitors
to Colombia grew 12% last year over 2005, and Cartagena was their
top destination.
International
arrivals at Cartagena's airport have more than doubled since 2003,
and cruise ship lines, which just a few years ago made only intermittent
stops at the port, are back. Eight cruise lines, including Royal
Caribbean, will make a total of a dozen calls a month, on average,
starting in August.
Colonial
history
Founded
in 1533, Cartagena was one of the most important colonial cities
on the Spanish Main, where shipments of gold and emeralds embarked
and where settlers and slaves arrived. To protect it, the Spanish
monarchy spent a fortune on fortifications, including seven miles
of walls and a dozen forts, many of which are still standing,
lending the city its historical charm.
The
old city within the walls, filled with architectural gems, is
remarkably well preserved -- and in fact was largely abandoned
until the redevelopment craze hit in the 1980s. Strollers there
get a pleasant sensation of time warp.
Attracted
by that charm are U.S. retirees such as Jim Pazynski of Madison,
Wis. Last year he and his wife moved into a high-rise apartment
just up the beach from Ortega's shack.
"This
is going to be another Miami Beach someday," said Pazynski,
a retired J.C. Penney salesman.
Pointing
in the direction of Ortega's property, he said, "Probably
if you took a picture up that way now and came back in 20 years,
you are going to say, 'Oh my God, what happened?' "
Some
residents and preservationists worry that growth is out of control
or poorly planned, and jeopardizes Cartagena's character.
Roads
and other infrastructure are woefully inadequate for the new development,
critics say, and pollution in surrounding estuaries is slowly
killing off the livelihoods of fishermen like Ortega.
"The
growth has little to do with the resources of the city and people
who live here. It has a lot more to do with globalization of tourism
and the fact that most of the new housing is for foreigners,"
said Alberto Abello, an economist at Bolivar Technological University
in Cartagena.
Growth
is taking place so fast that city officials seem at a loss to
quantify it.
Neither
the chamber of commerce nor the mayor's office could provide statistics
or estimates on 2006 construction. In 2005, the last year for
which figures are available, residential construction grew 53%
from the previous year, and observers doubt the pace has slowed.
"There
are more cars on the same roads. Food, restaurants and taxis are
more expensive. The public space is more crowded. Now I pay more
in living costs for less quality of life," said Oscar Collazos,
a newspaper columnist and novelist who has lived in Cartagena
for eight years.
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