El Baluarte
Coral-stone bastion with baroque sentry box, built on basket-packed foundations to guard the old port from pirate raids.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to El Baluarte in Cartagena traces the fortification from its start in the 1630s, when Spanish engineers packed its foundation with reed baskets filled with earth, giving it the old nickname Bulwark of the Baskets. It follows engineer Cristobal de Roda and Governor Francisco de Murga's work, built to answer Francis Drake's 1586 raid, and the later assault by the French admiral known as the Baron de Pointis. Look at the curved sentry box added after that French attack.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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