Museum sights in Bogotá
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Museo Histórico Policía
This surprisingly worthwhile museum 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, his Harley Davidson (a gift to a cousin) and his personal Bernadelli pocket pistol, otherwise known as his 'second wife.'
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Museo Nacional
Housed in the expansive, Greek cross-shaped building called El Panóptico and 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. Signage is Spanish only, but each floor offers a few handy English placards you can take along with you for the highlights.
The ground floor looks at pre-Columbian history, with rather oblique references to past groups and some gripping Muisca mummies that may date as far back as 1500 years. On the 3rd floor, room 16 gives the best sense of old prison life – with old cells now done up in various exhibits. The…
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Museo Botero
Set over two floors past a fountain-filled courtyard and small store of Botero-themed wares you'll find the location's highlight. At the front of the building there 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
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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Museo del 20 de Julio
The late-16th-century home that houses this museum 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. In these hallowed halls you can see the broken vase in question.
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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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Maloka
A kilometer south of the gardens, and a short walk from the bus station in the planned neighborhood of La Salistre, Maloka is a kid-oriented interactive center of science and technology. Lots of kids in uniform amble about the eight rooms – using physics to lift a car, or playing in the life-sized toy-block park. There’s also a high-tech Cine Domo cinema, which plays 40-minute films on a huge dome-ceiling.
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Quinta de Bolívar
About 250m downhill to the west from Monserrate station, this lovely historic home museum is set in a garden at the foot of the Cerro de Monserrate. The mansion was built in 1800 and donated to Simón Bolívar in 1820 in gratitude for his liberating services. Bolívar spent 423 days here over nine years. Its rooms are filled with period pieces, including Bolívar's sword. Less is said about its later days as a mental institution.
There's an English- and French-language brochure available for COP$2500, or a Spanish-language audioguide for COP$1000.
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Museo Militar
This two-floor museum is run by military guys in fatigues, and may be interesting to some for its playful models sporting the history of military uniforms (note the 'antiterrorist' outfit), a Korean War room, a video of the operation that rescued Ingrid Betancourt, and a courtyard of artillery and aircraft including a presidential helicopter. ID required.
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Casa de Moneda
At the west end of the block, you'll find this historic museum, which now houses the Colección Numismática in most of its front two floors. The exhibits (with a bit of English) start with pre-Columbian exchanges of pots and lead chronologically to misshapen coins, the introduction of a centralized bank in 1880 and how the cute tree art on the current 500 peso coin was made in the late 1990s. Behind the coins are the 10 halls of the Arte Colección, reached by overly elaborate ramps. Most of it sticks with modern splashes of oils by Colombian artists; the best, perhaps, are the giant figurative paintings by Luis Caballero (1943–95) on the 1st floor. A bit at odds with…
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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
Housed in a fine 18th-century casona (large, rambling house) surrounded by what was once a vast hacienda. It features a collection of historic objects of decorative art mostly from Europe – the exquisitely tiled bathroom is worth a visit alone – plus a picnic-perfect park.
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Museo del Oro
Bogotá's most famous museum and one of the most fascinating in all of South America, the recently renovated Gold Museum contains more than 55,000 pieces of gold and other materials from all the major pre-Hispanic cultures in Colombia. All is laid out in logical, thematic rooms over three floors – with descriptions in Spanish and English.
Second-floor exhibits break down findings by region, with descriptions of how pieces were used. There are lots of mixed animals in gold (eg jaguar/frog, man/eagle); and note how women figurines indicate how women of the Zenú in the pre-Columbian north surprisingly played more important roles in worship.
The 3rd-floor 'Offering' room…
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Museo de Arte del Banco de la República
Past a wall fountain and cafe. It shows changing exhibits, and its auditorium hosts many free events.
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Museo Militar
The Museo Militar traces the evolution of Colombia's armed forces.
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Museo de Arte Moderno
Opened in the mid-1980s in a spacious hall designed by 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 films on weekends at 3pm and 5pm (COP$4000).
reviewed