Overview
Bogotá is Colombia's capital, spread across an Andean plateau at 2,640 metres — a very large, cool, green city with a small walkable old quarter at the foot of the mountains, two of the finest museums on the continent, a pilgrimage peak rising directly behind it, and a habit of closing its main avenues to traffic every Sunday.
Travel
Bogotá spreads across a high Andean plateau at 2,640 metres, pressed along its eastern side against a wall of green mountains, and the altitude sets the terms for everything. The air is thin enough to notice on the first day. The climate is cool and even all year, with no summer and no winter, only drier and wetter spells. And the light shifts constantly as cloud comes off the peaks. It is a very large city, some eight million people across the plateau, but the part most visitors want is small, walkable and gathered at the foot of the mountains, where the old quarter holds two of the best museums on the continent within a few streets of each other. Directly behind it a peak rises past three thousand metres with a white church on top and a funicular running up the slope, which is where the scale of the place finally registers — the city runs to the horizon in every direction. What surprises most first-time visitors is how green and how cold the capital is, and how little it resembles the tropical Colombia of the coast. Bring layers and a rain jacket in any month, and leave the first day gentle while the altitude settles.
La Candelaria is the historic and cultural soul of Bogotá — the colonial old town climbing the lower slopes of the eastern mountains in a tangle of narrow, cobbled streets lined with brightly coloured one- and two-storey houses, churches, bohemian cafés and a clutch of universities that give it a youthful buzz. Its monumental centre is the vast Plaza Bolívar, ringed by the neoclassical Cathedral, the Capitolio (Congress), the Palace of Justice and the French-style city hall, with pigeons, vendors and a statue of the liberator Simón Bolívar in the middle. Around it wind streets full of museums, hidden courtyards, street art and old churches; the Chorro de Quevedo, the tiny plaza where the city was supposedly founded, fills with students, chicha (fermented maize drink) sellers and storytellers in the evening. It's a quarter best explored on foot in daylight, ideally on a walking tour that unlocks its history and graffiti.
Frequently asked questions
Diplomatic missions in Bogotá
7 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.