Must see places in Bogotá that you won't find in the tourist guide.

Know the city of everyone and of no one, full of stories, tradition, and diversity. Be welcome to the city 2.600 m closer to the stars.

Let’s begin! Bogotá was founded 410 years ago, the capital city of Colombia, South America, with the Spanish settlement that arrived in the XVI century. We can still see the architecture of those times in the historical center where the majority of the most touristic and photo places are located; museums, the Luis Ángel Arango library and the hill up to  Monserrate are some of the places of interest, lots go up to the hill of Monserrate to got a wonderful view of the ongoing growing city, even from this point the city borders get lost in the horizon.

The city is divided in localities, most of the touristic places are located in the east part of the city including the localities of Chapinero, Teusaquillo, La candelaria and Santa fé. Our gastronomy has the best of the inner country zone,for example the typical meal ajiaco is made of corn and the types of potato: sabanera and criolla, between other ingredients these are typical products of the regions Cundinamarca and Boyacá. In the same way in the capital city you have the opportunity to try original meals from different regions of Colombia.

Ajiaco

There are some coffee shops, pubs and restaurants that stand out for it’s quality and originality.

Usaquén has an important point for gastronomy, in that locality, you can also find the mall Hacienda Santa Barbara a mix between colonial and modern.

Hacienda Santa bárbara mall

The church of Santa Barbara, built in the XVII century is located in Usaquén square. It preserves paintings like oil ones of that century about some bible passages. Today is one of the churches preferred to get married.

Train station Usaquén Another Stop is the traditional bakery La gloconda, also in front of the square, there’s the station of the touristic train of La sabana, the one I mention later on this post. Usaquén train station to enjoy the gastronomy you can go to la zona T, a pedestrian path with the shape of a T in chapinero between the streets 83 and 85 with the best of restaurants, commerce and night life. Chapinero is also recognized as the diverse locality, a place where the first LGBT friendly places started in the 70’s, and they plodded along to be more visible, today some of them are still standing, between them, the most recognized in the club Theatron, founded in the ’80s and it is, actually the largest LGBT club in Latin America. There are still there some others as the Village café, el recreo de Adán and even an exclusive place for gays that are part of the bear community.

Theatron

In this locality you can find the monument Los héroes ( to the heroes of independence) and also you can find one of the best donuts in the city, Donut queens. You can visit some vegetarian restaurants in Teusaquillo such as La lunada a place where you can even take cooking classes. In this locality you can see the European alike architecture that grants personality to the streets, it’s ideal to walk and discover new places.

Within Teusaquillo there’s the Parkway as you can tell by its name, it’s a park with the shape of a long path, it’s surrounded by different locations with international influence such as an ecologic shop and a cat’s coffee. There are also classic bakeries and places like coffee shops and pubs that have been in operation from the XX Century.

Parkway

Some streets near the Parkway there’s one of my favorites, the vintage shop Revoltosas with unique clothing and accessories that are not only uncommon but also some of those products are created by women survivors of the armed Colombian conflict.

In the historical center, there’s the locality of Santa fé, where the restaurants face the tourism and the universitary environment for which this locality is known, for instance, there’s Pizza Candelaria with first-class pizzas, really kind staff, and comfy facilities. Near this place, there’s el chorro de Quevedo a meeting place of university students and street artists, in el chorro you can try the traditional drink, chicha. Chorro de Quevedo

The restaurant La Puerta falsa, the anciest restaurant, with 200 years of existence, traditional meals of Bogotá are offered in this restaurant then you can visit some of the 5 oldest Coffees such as Café Pasaje and Cafetería la romana. In this locality, you can also find the highest building in Colombia, Bacatá.

Bacatá

Downtown the main museums are museo del oro (gold’s museum),de la independencia ( museum of independence), museo nacional (national museum) and MAMBO (modern art museum). In Sunday you can attend to the flea market of San Alejo where a number of around 300 expositors of antiques, handicrafts, books, and curiosities gather.  the locality of Fontibón offers you the interactive museum, Maloka, the kid’s museum near the US embassy and the airport

. In the area of the park Simón Bolívar, you can go to the Virgilio Barco Library, a circular, brick structure surrounded by water mirrors is the base of its designing and it’s perfect to walk or read calmly.

Virgilio Barco Library

Traveling in the tourist train of La sabana you can go through the city from the west of the city in La sabana station go by Usaquén and with Zipaquirá as a final destination where the main touristic place is the salt mines.  La sabana train station

Also in the west, the monuments to the water goddess and the monument Banderas can be found in the locality of Kennedy going through the avenue Las américas.

Also by this avenue and closer to the historical center is Distrito Grafitti (District ) a street within the industrial sector full of amazing street art, ideal for original photoshoots. Regarding to the activities and events by season, the most important ones are Indiebo, Rock al parque and Estéreo picnic. Indiebo it's an Independent film festival that aims to take the independent cinema to everyone between June and July since 2017, it has meetings in different cinemas and in a bus that go through different localities of the city in which alternative cinema of different genres and countries is shown.  Rock al parque is a free music festival that has been around for 5o years for the enjoyment of Bogota’s people, it includes Latin American artists and artists of different parts of the world that are not limited to rock music, it takes place in the park Simón Bolívar in June. Estéreo picnic is a music festival that since 2009 has been making true the dreams of hundreds to see live some of the most listened artists in the world and it gathers them in the same place with the national promises, 3 days of party and music lovers that goes till the early hours of the morning in the suburbs of Bogotá.

Festival Estéreo picnic

Throughout the year in Corferias different fairs take places such as FILBO (International book fair), handicraft fair, car fair, wine fair and also the ComicCon and SOFA (fantasy and entertainment hall) two geek events that every year meet comics, films, video games and tv series. In my Instagram highlights I show some of my favorite places in the city. I hope you get inspired to visit this Chaotic beauty city.