
Museo del Oro
The Banco de la República's museum of pre-Columbian goldwork: tens of thousands of pieces, from breastplates to tiny votive figures, ending in a dark vault that lights up around you.
An Andean capital 2,600 metres up, with the gold of the pre-Columbian world, the collection Botero gave his country, and one of the liveliest contemporary scenes in Latin America.


The Banco de la República's museum of pre-Columbian goldwork: tens of thousands of pieces, from breastplates to tiny votive figures, ending in a dark vault that lights up around you.

In 2000 Fernando Botero gave the nation his own paintings and his collection, from Picasso and Monet to Dalí, in a colonial house with a courtyard. Part of the Banco de la República's free museum block, with the Casa de Moneda and the bank's own collection next door.

The Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, in a brick building by Rogelio Salmona (1985): Colombian and Latin American modern and contemporary art.

The national museum, in a former prison of 1874 built on the panopticon plan: the cells are now galleries, from pre-Columbian pottery to 20th-century painting.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.

Doris Salcedo's space of art and memory (2018): its floor is made of tiles cast from the weapons the FARC handed in after the peace agreement, hammered flat by women who survived sexual violence in the conflict. Artists are invited to show on it.

The oldest surviving church in the city, begun in the 16th century, plain outside and blazing inside, with a carved and gilded altarpiece filling the chancel.

Rogelio Salmona's three brick apartment towers (1970), curving down the hill around the bullring, with public paths and stairs through the gardens.
A church carved into a salt mine 180 metres underground, about 90 minutes north.
A whitewashed colonial town with a huge cobbled square, about three to four hours away.
Museo del Oro at opening → Iglesia de San Francisco → lunch in La Candelaria → Museo Botero → Fragmentos → the Torres del Parque at dusk.