Bogotá, from cobbles to clouds.
Dawn fruit markets, a salt cathedral carved underground, tejo and beer after dark, and the long climb up Monserrate. What each tour is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
Seven the city agrees on.
First time or fifth, these hold a Bogotá trip together: the bike loop through La Candelaria, a morning underground at the salt cathedral, the Paloquemao breakfast your hotel will never point you to.
Bicycle City Tour
Ride Bogotá by bike on a 4.5-hour route with fruit-market tastings, tejo, coffee, street art, and big-city landmarks in flat streets.
From $19 per person
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A cathedral hewn from salt.
An hour north of the city, an old mine holds a cathedral carved 180 metres down into the rock, its crosses glowing out of the dark. Pair it with Lake Guatavitá and the El Dorado legend and you have the Sabana’s finest day out, back in Bogotá in time for dinner.
Which Sabana day is yours?
Nearly everyone leaves the city for a day; the right direction depends on your trip. Here are three honest ways out of Bogotá, each already reviewed and priced, so you can pick the one that sounds like you and go.
Underground
The salt cathedral
9 hours · from $46 · 1,606 reviews
An hour north, a working salt mine with a whole cathedral cut into its heart, 180 metres down: cool, dim and startlingly vast. The easiest big day from Bogotá, and the one almost nobody regrets. Add Guatavitá if you have the hours.
See the salt cathedral days →
The El Dorado lake
Lake Guatavitá
from $91 · 615 reviews
A near-perfect green crater high in the mountains, sacred to the Muisca, where a gold-offering ritual gave the world the El Dorado myth. A gentle rim walk, a long quiet view, and thin cold air. Often twinned with the salt cathedral.
See the Guatavitá days →
Colonial Boyacá
Villa de Leyva
15 hours · from $154 · 66 reviews
Further out into Boyacá, a whitewashed town wrapped around one of the largest cobbled plazas in the Americas, barely touched since the 1500s. Fossil museums, highland vineyards and hard desert light. A full day, worth the early start.
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The night runs on tejo and beer.
Tejo is Bogotá’s own game: you lob a metal puck across a clay court at little packets of gunpowder, and a good throw goes off like a firecracker. Add a craft-beer crawl through Chapinero and you have a proper night out, with someone who knows which courts and bars are worth your evening.
The city eats at Paloquemao.
Bogotá eats best before nine: fruit you cannot name at Paloquemao, arepas off the griddle, a caldo to settle the altitude. If we could book only three food hours in the city, these would be the three.
Coffee, the way it leaves the tree.
The best beans rarely leave the country, and here they start on the branch. Tastings in the city, a working finca a couple of hours out, a roaster who will ruin supermarket coffee for you forever. Pick from these.
The old city, gold and all.
Painted balconies lean over cobbled lanes, Muisca gold glints in the Museo del Oro, and murals with something to say cover every third wall. La Candelaria holds four centuries of capital city, and a good guide is the difference between a photo and the story behind it.
The city in seven corners.
Bogotá keeps its best in a handful of districts, each an afternoon of its own. La Candelaria for the murals and the gold. Paloquemao for breakfast. Monserrate for the view over the savanna. The old streets for everything in between.
Know what you’re after?
Twelve ways to spend an afternoon in Bogotá. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of day, and every option behind it is already reviewed and priced.
The Sabana is a morning away.
A good road and an early start put a salt cathedral, a sacred crater lake and a colonial town all within a day of Bogotá, with coffee country and a 590-metre waterfall not much further. The seat back into the city is part of the ticket.
Seventy-two hours in Bogotá.
You cannot do all of Bogotá in one trip, but you can absolutely do the right three days. This is the order we would hand a friend landing at El Dorado tomorrow.
Day 1
Land in the old city
La Candelaria at opening time while the jet lag still works for you: Plaza de Bolívar, the Gold Museum, the murals, then a slow ajiaco for lunch. Easy pace, big payoff.
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Day 2
Market, then the mountain
Breakfast at Paloquemao among the fruit stalls, a bike loop through the centre, then the funicular up Monserrate for the whole savanna laid out at dusk.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Out to the salt cathedral
The early van north to Zipaquirá and the cathedral cut into the salt, Lake Guatavitá and its El Dorado legend on the way back. Check the forecast and give this day the clearest sky.
Plan day three →
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