Plaza de San Diego, Cartagena: Our Square, and How to Use It

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Quick answer

Plaza de San Diego is a small square in the northern corner of Cartagena's walled city, ringed with restaurant tables that fill up after dark. Come around 6pm if you want a table outside without waiting, eat ceviche at La Cevichería on Calle Stuart just off the square, then walk five minutes north to Las Bóvedas, the 23 vaulted storerooms built into the city wall that now sell handicrafts. We live on this square: we're on Carrera 7 in San Diego, and our rooftop is open till midnight if you'd rather drink above it than on it.

A colonial street with flowering vines in Cartagena's walled city
The streets around Plaza de San Diego, in the north of the walled city. · Photo by Ronin on Unsplash

Plaza de San Diego is the square we walk across every day. It sits in the northern end of the walled city, small enough to cross in about thirty seconds, and it's one of the few plazas in the Centro Histórico where the whole point is sitting down and eating something. Historians will tell you it was a market square long before it was a dinner reservation. What you'll notice first is the tables: restaurants push them out under the trees, and from roughly 7pm onward the square is full and loud in the good way.

We're in San Diego, on Carrera 7, so this is our neighbourhood rather than a day trip for us. Here's how we'd actually use the square and the streets around it, in the order we'd do it.

One honest warning before you plan your evening around it: this is a place people eat outside, at close quarters, with music. If you want colonial hush, aim for the streets one block west instead.

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