, but the sea is much cleaner than on the city's Bocagrande beach. A 17th-century castle was destroyed during the aforementioned battles, but there are ruins and a later fortification. The Rosario Islands, 60 miles from Cartagena, number 27 and are surrounded by pristine coral reefs and a){kind=link}
Colombia’s offshore possessions come with pristine beaches, coral reefs, endless cocktails and lashings of British connections
Did you know that Colombia invented the United Kingdom? That’s what everyone will ask you – or tell you – when you visit Cartagena de Indias.
It sounds like a bizarre claim, especially when you’re in a place so utterly Spanish colonial. This dreamy-looking port city was the regional HQ for galleons charged with protecting Spanish territories and the silver looted from Peru. It has baroque churches. It has as many plazas as Seville. It even has a Museum of the Inquisition.
But in the heady days of the Spanish empire in the Americas, British pirates and privateers lurked in every cove and behind every promontory of the Caribbean, and the Royal Navy also came in search of plunder and new possessions. During the War of Jenkins’s Ear of 1739-1748, no fewer than three battles took place off Cartagena as the British Empire vied for access to regional markets.
In 1741, one of the largest British fleets ever assembled – a fearsome flotilla of 186 ships carrying some 28,600 troops – tried to take Cartagena. They were repelled by a much smaller force of Spanish soldiers, militia and local residents under the command of Admiral Blas de Lezo. The British retreated after about two months, having suffered heavy losses from fighting and yellow fever – but lots of Spaniards died defending their bastion. The underdog victory is recounted at the Museo Naval and there’s a statue of Blas de Lezo on a palm-fringed square, but, frankly, history oozes from every building in the old centre.