Bogotá Sights

  1. Donación Botero

    Colombia's most famous artist, Fernando Botero, donated 123 of his own works, including paintings, drawings and sculptures, to this outstanding collection. Alongside his pieces are works by international artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Miró, Dali, Renoir, Matisse and Monet. The audio headset tour gives you a great overview.

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  2. 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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  3. Museo Arqueológico

    The Archaeological Museum features an extensive collection of pottery from the country's major pre-Columbian groups, confirming the high technical level and artistic ability achieved by local Indian cultures. The museum is housed in the Casa del Marqués de San Jorge, a beautifully restored 17th-century mansion and an outstanding piece of local colonial architecture known as arquitectura santafereña .

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  4. Museo de Arte Colonial

    The Museum of Colonial Art was inaugurated in 1942 in a great 17th-century building, which was originally a Jesuit college. It features paintings, carvings, furniture, silverware, books and documents from the colonial era.

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  5. Museo De Arte Moderno

    Opened in the mid-1980s in a modern, spacious building, the Museum of Modern Art focuses on various forms of visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography) from the beginning of the 20th century until the present. There are no permanent collections on display; all rooms are given to frequently changing exhibitions by national and sometimes foreign artists.

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  6. Museo de Trajes Regionales

    Museo de Trajes Regionales displays costumes from different regions of Colombia.

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  7. Museo del 20 de Julio

    The Museum of Independence is in a colonial house called the Casa del Florero, on the corner of Plaza de Bolívar. It was here on July 20, 1810 that the Creole rebellion against Spanish rule broke out. The museum has memorabilia (documents, paintings, personal objects etc) recalling that important event, a milestone in the struggle for independence, which was achieved nine years later.

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  8. 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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  9. Museo El Chicó

    In northern Bogotá, you can visit Museo El Chicó 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.

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  10. Museo Historico Policia

    The Museum of Police History is housed in the former Bogotá police headquarters, built in 1923 but converted into a museum in 1984. The free guided tour shows off all sorts of communication devices and firearms, but the real reason to visit is the basement exhibit focusing on the 499-day hunt for Pablo Escobar. The featured item here is Pablo's bloody jacket worn the day of his death.

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  12. Museo Militar

    The Museo Militar traces the evolution of Colombia's armed forces.

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  13. Museo Nacional

    The National Museum is in an unusual building known as El Panóptico. It was designed as the city prison by Thomas Reed (the same English architect who planned the Capitolio) and built of stone and brick on a Greek-cross floor plan in the second half of the 19th century. The jail, which housed more than 200 cells for both men and women, was closed in 1946 and after considerable internal reconstruction was transformed into a museum in 1948.

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  14. Observatorio Astronómico

    Between the Capitolio and the Casa are spacious formal grounds where the change of the presidential guard is held on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. On the western edge of the grounds is the Observatorio Astronómico, commissioned by José Celestino Mutis and constructed in 1803. This is reputedly the first astronomical observatory built on the continent.

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