This sultry city by the sea looms large in the imaginations of travelers for many reasons, but the beach is not one of them. No, it’s Cartagena’s intoxicating atmosphere — a heady blend of Caribbean ease and European panache — that gets under your skin and suddenly turns you into the kind of person who wears a Panama hat. Nowhere in the world do I feel more like an off-duty spy out of the pages of a Graham Greene novel. Colombia’s Caribbean jewel may seem rather exotic to Americans, but this colorful town, where flower-draped balconies overhang cobblestoned streets and salsa music drifts through the air, is just a three-hour flight from Miami. The opening of one of the year’s most anticipated hotels gave me the perfect excuse to linger for a few days after a cruise down the Magdalena River.

Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Cartagena

When we arrived, Cartagena was abuzz with chatter about its newest luxury hotel. Every guide, shopkeeper and bartender we met seemed delighted to hear we were staying at the Four Seasons, which had opened just days before we checked in. One driver proudly declared it “Colombia’s first six-star hotel.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the 131-room urban resort is undeniably spectacular. Spread across a collection of both new buildings and beautifully restored historic structures in Getsemaní, just outside the walled city, it’s a world of its own. Guests enter through a 1920s social club that’s been impressively redone, with a gleaming atrium and a dramatic double staircase.