Convento de la Popa

About a week and a half ago, I visited the Convento de la Popa (Cloister of the Stern), which is a church that sits on top of a 500 ft high hill. Supposedly it is referred to as the Cloister of the Stern because the hill resembles the stern of a ship. The actual name is the Cloister of Our Lady of Candelaria, in honor of the patron saint of Cartagena. On her feast day (February 2), there is a candlelight procession up the hill.

Built in the 1600s under the direction of an Augustinian friar, the cloister was originally a wooden church. It was used as military headquarters during the wars in the 1800s, then was abandoned for awhile, and was finally restored in the mid 1900s by the Augustinians. Pope John Paul II visited the cloister in the 1980s.

Approaching the cloister

Inside the chapel

Flowers in the courtyard

Bells used during Cartagena's fight for independence

Bones of the friar who directed the construction of the church...creepy