Castillo San Felipe and La Popa: What the Official Tariff Actually Says
Updated September 26, 2026 · 8 min read
Cartagena’s two big non-beach sights sit on two hills barely more than a kilometre apart as the crow flies, and they are run by two completely different organisations. That single fact explains almost every confusing thing you will read about their prices.
Castillo San Felipe de Barajas is part of the fortification complex administered by the ETCAR, whose fee schedule is a published document with a resolution number. Convento de la Popa is a working Augustinian convent, and it is not in that document at all. Anyone quoting you “the entrance fee for both” is quoting two unrelated sources, one of which is knowable and one of which is not.
The castle’s fees, from the tariff policy itself
These are the rates in force today. The ETCAR’s Política Tarifaria version 10 was adopted by Resolución 092 de 2025, dated 13 June 2025; Resolución 005 of 9 January 2026 replaced its article 5 and raised the amounts by 2025 inflation — 5.10 per cent, per the DANE bulletin of 8 January 2026:
| Rate | Amount (COP) | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Tarifa Plena | 38,000 | ages 14 to 61 — this is the visitor rate |
| Tarifa para Nacionales | 33,000 | holders of a valid Colombian cédula, physical or digital |
| Tarifa Reducida | 16,000 | Colombian children 6–13 with ID; students and teachers of Colombian institutions with a valid card |
| Programa Educativo ¡Vive tu Patrimonio! | 32,000 | enrolled school groups |
| Official state schools | 2,000 | public-school pupils, booked in advance |
The document states these are “valores a precios corrientes de 2026” — 2026 prices. And it states something more useful than the numbers:
The rate carries an automatic annual increase, effective from 15 January, by the consumer price index, rounded up to the nearest thousand pesos.
That is why every website gives you a different figure. Guides quoting 25,000, 33,000 or 50,000 pesos are not all wrong; they are quoting different years, or a rate for a different category, or guessing. The structure is stable and the number moves every January. The fortifications’ own site proves the point: its English visitor page still lists a full rate of COP 25,000 while the Spanish one carries the 38,000. Budget somewhat above 38,000 and confirm at the window.
One more thing that only matters if you try to use it: the reduced and national rates are applied in person at the ticket windows, on presentation of the document. There is no way to claim them in advance, and without the document they are not applied.
The exemption that catches older visitors
The tariff policy grants free entry to adults over 62. Read the wording and it says something narrower:
the benefit applies to Colombians or foreigners resident in Colombia who have turned 62, proven by cédula de ciudadanía.
So a 68-year-old visitor from Germany, Italy or Spain pays the full rate. This is not a small difference for a couple, and it is exactly the sort of thing that gets repeated online as “free for over-62s” with the residency condition dropped.
Genuinely free, with proof: children under six (under Colombian child-protection law), people with a recognised disability plus one companion, and honour reservists and decorated members of the Colombian armed forces. There is also the Domingo Libre, a free-entry Sunday the ETCAR schedules periodically. The tariff policy grants it specifically to Colombian citizens — as a foreign visitor you pay on that Sunday too, and you pay in the crowd. The often-quoted “last Sunday of the month, except January and December” comes from an earlier version of the policy; the current one names no fixed date.
“Entry included” is a question, not a fact
This is the practical heart of it. Many city tours visit the castle; not all of them pay for you to go inside it.
The guided tour with La Popa Convent and San Felipe costs €44, runs four hours and rates 4.4 with 651 reviews — rated well above the other big combined tour to the same two places. The cheaper panoramic city tour taking in monuments, walls and the castle is €24 for the same four hours and rates 3.8 across 1,008 reviews.
Twenty euros of difference is about twice a full castle ticket. And both booking pages answer the entry question themselves, differently: the €44 tour lists admission to the castle and entrance to the convent among its inclusions. The €24 one states plainly, “Visit San Felipe Castle (Entrance not included)”. So the cheaper tour plus both entries still comes in under the dearer one — the difference does not buy you the tickets, it buys you not standing at the window.
Our full listing is 92 old town and fortification tours, from €9.54, and the detailed comparison of the walking formats explains why the four-hour vehicle circuits rate lower than the two-and-a-half-hour walks.
La Popa is a convent, and it behaves like one
The Cerro de la Popa is the highest point in the city, and the view from the convent terrace is the one in the photograph above: the bay, the container port, the strip of Bocagrande towers, and the old town somewhere in the middle of it. It is the single best place to understand the city’s geography in one look.
What to expect, and what not to:
- It is a religious house with a museum and cloister, not a fortification. The charge is collected by the convent, it is substantially smaller than the castle’s, and published figures vary widely enough that none of them belongs in this article. Ask at the gate.
- It is not in the ETCAR tariff document, so nothing above applies to it — not the rates, not the January increase, not the exemptions.
- It closes earlier in the afternoon than the castle, and it is a working convent, so services take precedence over visitors.
Do not walk up. This is the one hard recommendation here. The hill is steep, the road up has no footway worth the name, and the route passes through neighbourhoods where walking is not advisable. Take the tour, a taxi that waits, or don’t go.
Timing, which decides more than the ticket
The fortifications’ Spanish visitor page gives Monday to Sunday, 7 am to 6 pm. The English version of the same page says 8 am — that is the stale figure, and you can tell because it still carries the COP 25,000 rate beside it. On the closing time the two agree. The first hour is the most valuable one here, which makes it the one worth checking on the page on the day.
What is not in dispute is the heat. The castle is a slope of bare stone with tunnels inside it and no shade on the ramparts, and Cartagena’s sun barely moves across the year — sunset runs from 5:37 pm at the earliest to 6:29 pm at the latest, a swing of under an hour. There is no long summer evening to wait for.
The sequence that works: castle first, at opening time at seven, when the stone is still cool and the tunnels are empty. La Popa in the late afternoon, for the light on the bay. The four-hour combined tour does it in the opposite order more often than not, which is worth asking about before you book.
And if you have one day: this pairs with the old town on foot, not with an island trip. The island boats leave at eight, and so should you — just not to the same place.
