Set around a beautiful, leafy courtyard, the Museo de Arte Colonial displays fine colonial-era religious and portrait art, as well as sculptures and furniture. A highlight is the exhibition about the life and work of seventeenth-century Baroque painter Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos.
The stone-built Casa de Moneda, or mint, is home to the Colección Numismática, its displays chronicling the history of money in Colombia from the barter systems of indigenous communities to the design and production of modern banknotes and coins. Ramps lead to the Colección de Arte, featuring a permanent exhibition of works owned by the Banco de la República. The predominant focus here is on contemporary Colombian artists, but the pieces on display range from seventeenth-century religious art through to modern canvases by twentieth-century painters. Behind the permanent collection is the Museo de Arte, a modern, airy building that houses free, temporary exhibitions of edgy art, photography and challenging installations.
Housed in a fine colonial mansion surrounding a lush courtyard, the Museo Botero contains one of Latin America’s largest collections of modern and Impressionist art, donated in 2000 by Colombia’s most celebrated artist, Fernando Botero. There are no fewer than 123 paintings and sculptures by Medellín-born Botero himself, which rather upset the residents of his home city. Botero’s trademark is the often satirical depiction of plumpness – he claims to find curvy models more attractive than slim ones – and here you will find fatness in all its forms, from a chubby Mother Superior to rotund guerrilla fighters.
Also on display are works by Picasso, Miró, Monet, Renoir and Dalí, as well as a sculpture room featuring works by Henry Moore and Max Ernst.
A couple of blocks south of Plaza de Bolívar, between Cra 7 and 8, is the heavily fortified presidential palace and compound, Casa de Nariño, done in the style of Versailles. This is where President Santos currently lives and works. To take part in a guided visit, book online – look for “Visitas Casa de Nariño” on the website. It’s also possible to watch the ceremonial changing of the guard three times a week – best viewed from the east side of the palace.
Looming over the Plaza de Bolívar, Bogotá’s Neoclassical Catedral allegedly stands on the site where the first Mass was celebrated in 1538. Rebuilt over the centuries after several collapses, it was completed in 1823, and while its interior is gold-laced, it’s still relatively austere compared to the capital’s other churches. You’ll find the tomb of Jiménez de Quesada, Bogotá’s founder, in the largest chapel.
The heart of La Candelaria is the Plaza de Bolívar, awhirl with street vendors, llamas, pigeons and visitors; in the evenings, street-food carts set up shop by the cathedral. A pigeon-defiled statue of El Libertadór himself stands in the centre of the square, surrounded by monumental buildings in disparate architectural styles spanning more than four centuries, most covered with political graffiti.
On the west side of the cathedral stands the Neoclassical Capitol, where the Congress meets, with its imposing, colonnaded stone facade. On the plaza’s north side is the modern Palacio de Justicia, which was reconstructed in 1999 after the original was damaged during the army’s much-criticized storming of the building in 1985, in response to the M-19 guerrilla takeover, with more than a hundred people killed in the raid.
Every Friday from 5pm, Cra 7 is closed to traffic from Plaza de Bolívar all the way to C 26, and the streets fill with performers, food vendors and cachacos (Bogotá natives). The Septimazo, as it is called, is people-watching at its best.
Rumbear, literally to dance the rumba, is how locals refer to a night’s partying, which invariably involves heavy doses of dancing. Bars and discos in La Candelaria attract a somewhat bohemian, often studenty crowd, while their fluorescent-lit counterparts in the Zona Rosa in North Bogotá (around C 83 and Cra 13) appeal to the city’s beautiful people. Virtually everywhere shuts down at 3am. Take taxis to and from your destination.
While the traditional highlander diet consists of meat and starch, middle-class cachacos prefer the same cosmopolitan cuisine as their counterparts in London or New York. Bogotá has four main restaurant zones, from south to north: gritty La Candelaria; yuppie La Macarena (Cra 4 between calles 23 & 28); gay-friendly Chapinero, also called the “G-Zone” (between calles 58 & 72 and carreras 3 & 7); and upmarket Zona Rosa (concentrated in the “T Zone” at C 82 and Cra 12).
Most budget accommodation is concentrated in La Candelaria; all accommodation reviewed apart from one hostel is in La Candelaria. All offer free internet and/or wi-fi. Most have private rooms with either shared or private bathrooms; prices here are for doubles with shared bathroom in high season (single rooms are often around two-thirds the price of a double).
In addition to its cathedral, La Candelaria is teeming with some of the best-preserved colonial-era churches and convents found in Latin America:
Museo Iglesia de Santa Clara Overlooking Palacio Nariño, the austere exterior, built in the early part of the seventeenth century and formerly part of the convent of Clarissa nuns, contrasts sharply with its opulent gold-plated interior and Day of the Dead-looking anaemic Christ.
Iglesia de San Francisco Across from the Gold Museum, San Francisco is appropriately noted for its particularly splendid golden altar.
Iglesia de la Concepción The soaring vault here is a fine example of the Moorish-influenced Mudéjar style popular in the sixteenth century.
Iglesia de San Ignacio The largest and most impressive of the colonial-era churches is the domed San Ignacio founded in 1610 as the first Jesuit church in Nueva Grenada.
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