Bogota City Tour with Bolivar Square, Botero, Gold Museum, Monserrate & Zipaquirá

Description

On this tour, you will get a complete experience of what Bogotá is. You will have the best of two tours in one. This City Tour is the most effective way to visit memorable and relevant sights of Bogota in half, as well as having access to an expert guide with extensive historical and present knowledge of Colombia. Then, go 180 meters underground and let yourself be amazed by a world-class Colombian wonder: a majestic cathedral built inside the depths of the biggest salt rock reserve on Earth.

Your day will start when your driver picks you up from your hotel, to take you to your first stop: the Monserrate Sanctuary, located within the imposing Eastern Hills of the city, at an altitude of 3150MASL. Ascending to the top of the mountain on a cable car, you will reach the most famous pilgrimage point of the city, and perhaps the most incredible lookout spot in the capital. This is the best spot to grasp the historical and spatial contextualization of the city.

Following that, you will descend towards the picturesque cobbled streets of La Candelaria, to visit the Botero Museum. This place holds some of the artworks of the eccentric artist Fernando Botero - an icon of Colombian contemporary art. You will also stop at Chorro de Quevedo to appreciate the contrast of the downtown historical center and understand Colombian history properly.

After the walking tour in La Candelaria, you will reach Plaza de Bolívar. It is here where administrative and governmental buildings -  that have been icons of the historical processes carried out in our country - surround the main square of the Plaza.

To finalize the city tour, you will cross La Candelaria’s border to become immersed in the most impressive collection of indigenous gold artifacts at the Gold Museum. As you leave, you'll have the chance to go shopping at the handicrafts market at Parque Santander.

As soon as the city tour is over, you will be taken to the charming town of Zipaquirá where you will visit the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral. This is a place where the mysticism of Muiscas (indigenous culture), Catholic symbolism, and contemporary engineering, came together to take visitors on a magical tour through tunnels and vaults of impressive sizes.

On this tour, you will enter an old salt mine that was adapted to become a cathedral. Here, artists and sculptors have manipulated the materials found underground to create original representations of Catholic symbols. Learn from an expert guide about this process and the meanings behind the artworks you will see on tour.

Then, you will head to the colonial village of Zipaquirá, where you’ll walk through the main square that is surrounded by several buildings that have been declared national monuments. Here, you will taste some delicious baked foods of the region and check out the local handicraft market. Lastly, you will head back to Bogotá where you will be driven to your hotel.