Showing 1-20 of 20 results
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Bolívar Family's Summer House
Located in the far southern section of the historic center, this was the Bolívar Family's Summer House, where Simón Bolívar spent much of his youth. Restored to its original appearance and stuffed with period furniture, the house is today a museum dedicated to El Libertador.
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Casa Natal de Bolívar
The house where independence hero Simón Bolívar was born on July 24, 1783 has been reconstructed and turned into a museum. Exhibits include period weapons, banners and uniforms. Much of the original colonial interior has been replaced by monumental paintings of battle scenes, but more personal relics can be seen in the nearby Museo Bolivariano.
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Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño
Rising like a gigantic concrete bunker across the street from Parque Central (and linked to it by a footbridge), the Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño is a modern performing arts center. Opened in 1983, it has an enormous main auditorium, theater and side hall that regularly host concerts, ballets, plays and recitals by local and visiting performers.
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Concejo Municipal
Occupying half of Plaza Bolívar's southern side, the city hall, the Concejo Municipal was erected by the Caracas bishops from 1641 to 1696 to house the Colegio Seminario de Santa Rosa de Lima. In 1725, the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Caracas, the province's first university, was established here. Bolívar renamed it the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the moniker it keeps to this day, though it has moved to a vast campus outside the historic center.
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La Estancia
This renovated fragment of a 220-year-old coffee hacienda, La Estancia houses a fine museum with works by Venezuelan artists and displays on the plantation's history, as well as a graphic arts library. Property of the Simón Bolívar family until 1895, it is now owned by Petróleos de Venezuela Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA), the national oil company. Continuous guided tours of the installations are offered (English docents available), and concerts are staged in the patio on weekends.
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Museo Bolivariano
Continuing on the Bolívar trail, this museum has successfully preserved its colonial style and displays a variety of independence memorabilia, from muskets to medals and shaving sets to swords. It also has some fascinating documents and letters written by the man himself, as well as numerous portraits.
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Museo de Arte Popular de Petare Bábaro Rivas
Museo de Arte Popular de Petare Bábaro Rivas exhibits folk art superbly displayed in a two-century-old house.
Read more about Museo de Arte Popular de Petare Bábaro Rivas
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Museo de Bellas Artes
Adjoining the National Art Gallery (Galería de Arte Nacional), the Museo de Bellas Artes is in a more functional modern six-story building, also designed by Villanueva. The museum features mostly temporary exhibitions, and includes a little shop selling contemporary art and crafts.
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Museo de Ciencias Naturales
The Natural Sciences Museum, across the circle from Bellas Artes, traces the history of evolution with displays of minerals and fossils, as well as exhibits covering indigenous languages and astronomy.
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Museo de los Niños
The brightly colored Children's Museum is an excellent science museum with lots of colorful, hands-on exhibits combining learning with fun for both kids and adults. There's a small planetarium too.
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Museo del Teclado
Tucked away behind the Museo de los Niños and up a flight of stairs, this little museum, the Museo del Teclado holds a collection of rare pianos and other keyboard instruments. It's also a venue for concerts and recitals Saturday at and Sunday at .
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Museo Fundación John Boulton
This small museum called Museo Fundación John Boulton features a collection of historic and artistic objects accumulated over generations by the family of British merchant John Boulton (1805-75). Among the exhibits are paintings by Arturo Michelena, Bolívar memorabilia and a vast collection of ceramics from all over the world.
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Museo Sacro de Caracas
In a meticulously restored colonial building on the site of the old cathedral cemetery, this museum displays a modest but carefully selected collection of religious art. Duck through the low doorway into the dark old ecclesiastical prison, where remains of early church leaders still lie in sealed niches. The Museo Sacro also stages concerts and recitals, and has a delightful cafe inside a former chapel of the adjacent cathedral.
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Museo Santana
Museo Santana, inside the Concejo Municipal, has a unique 'doll's-house version' of the city's development, filled with elaborate miniature models of turn-of-the-19th-century Caracas. All the models were created by local artist, Raúl Santana. There are also grand historic paintings, banners and some fascinating ceiling murals; look for the one depicting Bolívar in the heavens.
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Museum of Colonial Art & Quinta de Anauco
The Museum of Colonial Art & Quinta de Anauco is housed in an elegant country mansion known as Quinta de Anauco, laid out around a charming patio and enclosed by lush, shady gardens. A ball was staged here in honor of Simón Bolívar's very last night in Caracas: he was never to return alive.
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Museum of Contemporary Art
Occupying the eastern end of the Parque Central complex, the Museum of Contemporary Art is by far the best in the country, if not the continent. In a dozen halls on five levels, you'll find big, bold and sometimes shocking works by many prominent Venezuelan artists, including Jesús Soto, famous for his kinetic pieces.
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National Art Gallery
The National Art Gallery has a vast collection embracing five centuries of Venezuelan artistic expression. Anything from pre-Hispanic art to mind-boggling modern kinetic pieces may be showcased here in temporary exhibitions. Designed in 1935 by Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, the graceful building radiates from a neoclassical-style courtyard with a pond and weeping willow. The gallery also houses Caracas' leading art cinema.
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National Pantheon
The entire central nave of the imposing National Pantheon is dedicated to national hero Simón Bolívar, underlining the almost saint-like reverence with which he is held in Venezuela. His bronze sarcophagus is placed in the chancel, and the path to reach his tomb is covered by a ceiling filled with paintings of Bolívar's life, all done by Tito Salas in the 1930s.
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People Power History Museum
Installed on the ground level of the mayor's office, which takes up the north side of the Plaza Bolívar, the People Power History Museum is 'devoted to the revolutionary process initiated by Hugo Chávez Frias.' It aims to highlight the cultural heritage of the Venezuelan people through exhibitions on the progress of social movements, achievements of revolutionary heroes and alleged crimes of US imperialism.
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