Iglesia/Claustro Santo Domingo
If you only plan to visit one church in Cartagena, make it this one. Located on one of the city’s most vibrant plazas, spilling over with cafes and vendors, the Church of Santo Domingo is the oldest church in Cartagena (built in the 1570s) and one of the finest in Latin America (the competition is fierce). The church is famous for its baroque, marble altar replete with an image of the Virgin with a gold-and-emerald encrusted crown and a 19th-century wooden image of Christ. As legend would have it, if anyone should have the audacity to try to remove the Christ from the church, it would grow too large to fit through the door—a magical realist move that is straight from the pen of Gabo. There’s a dash of the surreal in the church’s lopsided bell tower and the 19th-century tombstones that comprise the two aisles. The addition of buttresses (estribos) to shore up the structure and maintain the colossal roof gave rise to the Callejón de los Estribos.
If you only plan to visit one church in Cartagena, make it this one. Located on one of the city’s most vibrant plazas, spilling over with cafes and vendors, the Church of Santo Domingo is the oldest church in Cartagena (built in the 1570s) and one of the finest in Latin America (the competition is fierce). The church is famous for its baroque, marble altar replete with an image of the Virgin with a gold-and-emerald encrusted crown and a 19th-century wooden image of Christ. As legend would have it, if anyone should have the audacity to try to remove the Christ from the church, it would grow too large to fit through the door—a magical realist move that is straight from the pen of Gabo. There’s a dash of the surreal in the church’s lopsided bell tower and the 19th-century tombstones that comprise the two aisles. The addition of buttresses (estribos) to shore up the structure and maintain the colossal roof gave rise to the Callejón de los Estribos.
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