Museo Nacional de Colombia
Inside a fortress-like building, the Museo Nacional de Colombia provides a detailed chronological look at the country’s tumultuous history. The converted jailhouse’s most impressive exhibits relate to the conquest and the origins of the beguiling El Dorado myth that so obsessed Europe. The second floor houses an extensive collection of paintings by modern Colombian artists, including Fernando Botero, while on the third floor, don’t miss the exhibit on Jorge Gaitán, the populist leader assassinated in 1948. Descriptions are in Spanish only, but you can pick up English-language placards.
Plaza de Bolívar
The heart of La Candelaria is the Plaza de Bolívar, awhirl with street vendors, llamas, pigeons and visitors; in the evenings, street-food carts set up shop by the cathedral. A pigeon-defiled statue of El Libertadór himself stands in the centre of the square, surrounded by monumental buildings in disparate architectural styles spanning more than four centuries, most covered with political graffiti.
On the west side of the cathedral stands the Neoclassical Capitol, where the Congress meets, with its imposing, colonnaded stone facade. On the plaza’s north side is the modern Palacio de Justicia, which was reconstructed in 1999 after the original was damaged during the army’s much-criticized storming of the building in 1985, in response to the M-19 guerrilla takeover, with more than a hundred people killed in the raid.
Every Friday from 5pm, Cra 7 is closed to traffic from Plaza de Bolívar all the way to C 26, and the streets fill with performers, food vendors and cachacos (Bogotá natives). The Septimazo, as it is called, is people-watching at its best.
Plazoleta del Chorro de Quevedo
Nowhere is La Candelaria’s grittier, bohemian side better captured than on the streets surrounding the Plazoleta del Chorro de Quevedo. The tiny plaza is said to be the site of the first Spanish settlement, though the tiled-roof colonial chapel on the southwest corner was built much later.
Quinta de Bolívar
At the foot of Monserrate is the Quinta de Bolívar, a spacious colonial mansion with beautiful gardens where Simón Bolívar lived sporadically between 1820 and 1829. The informative museum retells the story of Bolívar’s final, desperate days in power before being banished by his political rivals, in a collection that includes a plethora of Bolívar paraphernalia including his military medals, billiard table and bedpan. One object you won’t see here is the sword El Libertadór used to free the continent from four centuries of Spanish rule. It was stolen in 1974 from the collection in the now legendary debut of urban guerrilla group M-19. When they handed in their arsenal in 1991, the sword was quickly shuttled into the vaults of the Banco República.