Bogotá: Itineraries

A Top Day in Bogotá

Me, well, I like Bogotá's historic centre, La Candelaria - so I prefer staying there, in the company of colonial-era cobbled streets and tight sidewalks that lead in all directions from the central Plaza de Bolívar. But first I'd start with breakfast at a restaurant atop the Montserrate mountain, reached by a five-minute funicular trip a couple of kilometres north, and eat my eggs with full views of the sprawling capital. Then I'd taxi back to La Candelaria, and stop in the free and wonderful Museo Botero, highlighting the Colombian artist's revelry in all things fat - fat snoozing presidents, fat women bathing, fat cats, fat fingers, fat birds. A shop for Juan Valdez - the moustached coffee icon of Colombia - has a cafe out front which is good for a quick espresso. For a long, late-afternoon lunch, Fulanitos is an excellent four-century-old restaurant decorated with old bullfight posters and specialising in food from the area around Cali - I'd take a sour lulada fruit drink with my plate of fish or chicken and look over terracotta rooftops. I might roam a few more backstreets, perhaps poke into an old cathedral or two, then check back at my base at the Platypus hostel/guesthouse to see what fellow travellers, or long-term NGO residents, are doing for the night - and bum a spot in a walking bar-hop around the district.

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