Aljibe
Ground-floor rooms that open off the courtyard and take their name from the cistern beside them. The windows sit in deep reveals, and a door leads out to the pool terrace.
Centro Histórico, inside the walls
A merchant's house of 29 rooms, built around its own courtyard
The lime-washed walls are half a metre thick, so the rooms stay cool at four in the afternoon while the street outside bakes. A plunge pool now fills the old water cistern in the middle of the courtyard. Shuttered balconies lean over a street so narrow you hear the fruit carts before you see them.
Up the stone stair from the courtyard, on the second floor of the house, the hotel runs a small casino of its own. For everything else, the clock tower, Plaza Santo Domingo and the ramparts at sunset are all within a ten-minute walk.
Stay
“Twenty-nine rooms and no two the same shape. A cloth merchant had the house built in 1741, and nobody since has had the heart to straighten it out.”
From the guest book, kept at reception
Balcón
First-floor rooms with the original shuttered balconies over Calle del Candilejo. In the morning you hear bells and brooms, and someone on the corner selling mango.
Azotea
Two rooms under the roof. The ceilings are lower than elsewhere in the house, the quiet is better, and a private stretch of terrace faces the cathedral dome.
Eat & drink
Mesa Larga
A single long table in the old counting room seats eighteen. Dinner runs to four courses and the menu is written each morning after the trip to Bazurto market, so expect snapper, plantain, cashew, or whatever the boats brought in.
Cantina del Aljibe
The courtyard bar opens at five. Rum is the centre of the list, aged and otherwise, though the bartender is happy to talk you through a tamarind sour if rum isn't for you.
Perejil
Six seats at a breakfast counter beside the kitchen door. You get eggs, arepa de huevo, fruit cut in front of you and coffee from a farm outside Ciénaga, and the counter is open until half past ten.
La Azotea
The roof terrace is for guests only and looks across tiled roofs to the sea wall. It serves light plates and cold beer, and for about twenty minutes each evening it has the best seat in the house.
18+
The casino upstairs: Hacienda Linares Casino
Hacienda Linares Casino is a single room on the second floor of the house, directly above the courtyard. From the lobby you take the stone stair beside reception, or the small lift if stairs are awkward, and you stay inside the building the whole way. The casino is a small one, with a few tables and a bar along the shuttered wall, open in the evenings. It closes when the last table finishes.
Smart-casual is the dress code for the casino, so beachwear and flip-flops should stay in your room.
You must be 18 or over, and we check photo ID at the door on every visit, hotel guests included, even if you were here last night. Limits at the casino are arranged in person with our staff on the floor, so ask before you sit down and they'll explain where things stand. For self-exclusion, speak to someone at reception: it is arranged face to face and takes effect that same evening.
This is a land-based casino inside the hotel, and the website is only information: it offers no online casino games, takes no bets, holds no accounts and accepts no deposits or payments. Play happens on the second floor, in person, with staff in the room.
Getting around
- Rafael Núñez airport is about 10 km north of the old city, and a taxi takes twenty to thirty minutes depending on how the Avenida Santander is behaving.
- The walls run most of the way around the old city, and the full circuit on foot takes a little over an hour. Start at Baluarte de Santo Domingo late in the day, once the stone has stopped throwing heat back at you.
- Getsemaní is a twelve-minute walk from the front door, past the clock tower, and it's at its best in the evening when Plaza de la Trinidad fills up.
- Boats to the Rosario Islands leave from the Muelle de la Bodeguita, roughly fifteen minutes on foot. Reception books seats the day before, so ask early if you want a good one.
Find us
Hacienda Linares
Calle del Candilejo 6-42
Centro Histórico
Cartagena de Indias, Bolívar 130001
Colombia
Calle del Candilejo 6-42
Centro Histórico
Cartagena de Indias, Bolívar 130001
Colombia
Telephone +57 605 418 2276
Email [email protected]
Reception is staffed around the clock. For the casino's hours and house rules, please ask at the desk, as we don't answer those by email.