City Exploring

One of the imperatives of travel is flexibility. I went to bed the night before with an understanding of the day's plan, only to find that it had shifted overnight. All good--there's always more to see and explore than there is time for, and if something's not open, then you have to change the plan. So, instead of museums all day, we started with a walking tour.

First up, the Parque Nacional. It's huge! And many lights for the holidays.... 

Stunning tree-lined walks, some with palms and some with deciduous trees. Such an interesting mix. 

This is so cool! It's Bogotá and the surrounding region. You can see the typography really well, how the cordillera rises from the river valley, the steepness of the terrain on one side, the settlements, etc. 

Too bad we were here during the daytime; I'm sure the lights were spectacular. 

Fountains and lots of public spaces. Off to the side, basketball and raquetball courts. Up above, trails and paths. Impressive. 

Then, neighborhood wandering. This was a charming neighborhood of rising, winding streets, with some beautiful homes. Again, touring with an architect has advantages. And the day was picture-perfect!

I loved this Mondrian-esque set of windows. 

Ha! A Spanish restaurant named for and influenced by Gaudí. There's my favorite drac! Love the Santa climbing down from the upper level. 

Great street art too. 

And a sewer plate. I really liked the frog. This is an older one, from the 50s. Apparently there aren't many of these still around. 

This lovely street is tree-lined and quiet, yet very close to downtown. It's full of gorgeous houses, some private, some institutes or businesses. It could be anywhere....

LOVE THIS HOUSE! We once set a plan that when we're in our 80s we'll take care of each other, since no one else will want to put up with us. Maybe we'll be able to afford this house then.

Beautiful public parks like these abound too. Apparently city dwellers are still learning about public spaces, both being able to access them and care for them. They have some stunning ones.

 This is a great series of three towers, in gorgeous brick, where each unit seems to be a duplex with a view. The park above is adjacent to the towers and designed by the same architect. I don't like the very tall one, but the others are quite nice.

 And next door is the old bull ring. Now it hosts concerts. Surprisingly, the practice ended only a couple of years ago.

During our wanderings we stopped for lunch in one of the growing hip neighborhoods that's seeing a huge revitalization and lots of restaurants and young people come in. We had wonderful Peruvian food, thankfully very light--a trio of seafood causas (a potato dish), ceviche, and grilled octopus. Yum! Then, it was off to the Museo Nacional. 

I really liked how they publicly noted that they are rethinking the museum, and what it means to be the national museum. These are big questions (How do we see ourselves? Where do we come from? etc.) and hopefully this helps prompt some good discussion.

Love this piece; it reminded me of one from our collection which is on the cover of one of our publications.

Part of the first floor of the museum is the indigenous collection, particularly early pre-colonization cultures. There wasn't always much information about the pieces, but the text panels were really interesting. Surprise, I'd never heard of most of these cultures before.

Second floor is mostly colonial, and the third floor is primarily contemporary. I wasn't very familiar with the painter Fernando Botero, but thankfully the National Museum has a number of his paintings on display, because the Botero Museum was closed each time we tried to go. I love the terracotta roofs in the city, so this green, I guess parrot, sitting among them appealed to me.  

There was also a fun little room about music. We had a few hours at the museum, but we still missed the special exhibition. 

Still, we got to see the courtyard before they kicked us out. 

Back toward the hotel! The commercial center was all lit up. 

It's really amazing to me how much work is done, how much budget the city must have for this. It's stunningly beautiful. 

Even inside.

We had a field trip planned for the next day, with an early start and a long bus ride, so we went to pick up pastries for the morning, but since the bakery opened at 6a, we thought we'd wait and get them fresh. We then went to make dinner reservations for the family for Tuesday night, but the restaurant was closed. Ah well. Thankfully the hotel agreed to call for me on Monday morning.