Museum sights in Bogotá
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Museo Histórico Policia
The surprisingly worthwhile Museo Histórico Policia not only gets you inside the lovely ex-HQ (built in 1923) of Bogotá’s police force, but gives you 45 minutes or so of contact time with 18-year-old, English-speaking local guides who are serving a one-year compulsory service with the police (interesting tales to be heard). The best parts otherwise follow cocaine-kingpin Pablo Escobar’s demise in 1993 – with a model dummy of his bullet-ridden corpse – or the surreal juxtaposition of a Neanderthal-fight mural before cases and cases of more modern means of killing each other (pistols and rifles).
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Museo Nacional
Museo Nacional, Centro Internacional's principal attraction, is housed in the expansive, Greek cross–shaped building called El Panóptico, designed as a prison by English architect Thomas Reed in 1874. Walking through the (more or less) chronological display of Colombia’s past, you pass iron-bar doors into white-walled halls.
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Museo Botero
Past a fountain-filled courtyard and small store of Botero-themed wares is the location’s highlight, the Museo Botero. Set over two floors at the front of the building here are several halls dedicated to all things chubby: hands, oranges, women, mustached men, children, birds, violins, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leaders – all, of course, the robust paintings and sculptures of Colombia’s most famous artist, Fernando Botero. (Botero himself donated these works.) The collection also includes several works by Picasso, Chagall, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and Miró, and hilarious sculptures by Dalí and Max Ernst.
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Museo de Arte Colonial
Around the corner at Carrera 6, the Museo de Arte Colonial occupies a one-time Jesuit college and does a nice job of tracing the evolution of how religious and portrait art pieces are made, particularly by Colombia’s favorite Baroque artist Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos (1638–1711). Its upstairs exhibits begin with a messy gallery space (eg trial sketches on walls) and lead into a hall with sketch pieces and a couple of dozen (finished) Vásquez works from the museum’s collection of nearly 200 by the artist. Downstairs exhibits focus on religious artifacts.
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E
Museo del 20 de Julio
The late-16th-century home that houses the Museo del 20 de Julio marks the spot where a ‘broken vase was heard around the world.’ Apparently. Just after Napoleon overcame Spain in 1810, a local Creole Antonio Morales came here, according to the story, and demanded an ornate vase from its Spanish owner José González Llorentes, which led to a fistfight on the street (plus one shattered vase, and some hurt feelings) – eventually spurring a rebellion.
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Museo Arqueológico
A couple of blocks east of Museo del Siglo XIX, the Museo Arqueológico is a quirky, not quite fully realized survey of pre-Columbian groups through pottery pieces from around the country. Perhaps best is the building, a lovely 17th-century townhouse that seems almost surprised with its latest incarnation. Signs are subtitled in English, and a timeline charts back from 1492, including early groups like Ilama (from 700BC).
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Iglesia de Santa Clara
Today open as a museum, the Church of Santa Clara is probably the most representative of Bogotá's colonial churches. Built between 1629 and 1674 as a part of the Poor Clares Convent, the church is a single-nave construction topped with a barrel vault painted with floral motifs. The walls are entirely covered with paintings (more than 100 of them), statues of saints and altarpieces, all dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Museo de Trajes Regionales
Across Calle 10, and filling the gorgeous one-time home of Simón Bolívar’s mistress Manuelita Sáenz, the simple Museo de Trajes Regionales displays colorful Spanish and pre-Columbian fashions neatly tagged with photos of models playfully posing in them. The museum also hosts some interesting courses; at last pass, courses to learn to make plastic figurines met 2pm to 5pm Thursday (one month course, COP$20,000).
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Museum of Modern Art
Opened in the mid-1980s in a spacious hall designed by a revered local architect, Rogelio Salmona, the Museum of Modern Art focuses on various forms of visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, video) from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Exhibits change frequently, often highlighting Latin America artists. The cinema here screens about four films daily.
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Museo El Chicó
Museo El Chicó is housed in a fine 18th-century casona (large, rambling house) surrounded by what was once a vast hacienda, now little more than a garden. It features a collection of historic objects of decorative art, mostly from Europe, plus a kids’ park.
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Museo del Oro
Housed in a modern building facing Plaza de Santander, the Gold Museum contains more than 34,000 gold pieces from all the major pre-Hispanic cultures in Colombia. It is arguably the most important gold museum in the world.
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Museo Militar
The Museo Militar traces the evolution of Colombia's armed forces.
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