Our trip to Bogotá in September 2024, was a very special one. The purpose of the trip was to fulfill the biggest dream of the father of my (Colombian) travel partner to attend a concert by André Rieu and his orchestra in the Movistar Arena. 

Because we live in Curaçao and father Antonio and his wife Alix live in the coastal city of Barranquilla, we flew separately to Bogotá. Besides the concert, we wanted to do some sightseeing in Bogotá, to make most of our trip. We planned several trips, such as a shopping day at the outlets on Avenida de las Americas.

As it has been a while that we visited the historic center La Candelaria, this was also on the planning during our stay, as well as the famouse Monserrate mountain and a day trip to Jaime Duque park + salt cathedral of Zipaquirá, where we wanted to visit the newest extension -the underground museum.

As a central base for all our activities, we rented an apartment in the neighborhood Chico Norte. We arrived on Sunday and the family on Monday, so we had all the time to settle in the comfortable appartment, with a common roof terrace with cityview. 

Next to the apartment complex is café Culto, a nice place for a good breakfast, lunch, dinner, fresh juices or a cappuccino with something tasty from the bakery. 

On Monday, we went to pick up Antonio and Alix at El Dorado airport. With flowers and an André Rieu scarf, we were waiting for the family.  The reunion was priceless!

Antonio couldn’t wait for the day of the concert to arrive! 

On September 18, the time had finally come. The concert was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and the doors opened at 5 p.m., giving us the entire morning and afternoon for our sightseeing trip. We would then still have plenty of time to get ready for the concert and to be at the Movistar Arena at 6 p.m…..But that schedule didn’t work out at all!

Still fresh and full of energy, we began our city walk in the morning in La Candelaria. The first stop was Museo Botero.

We are fans of Fernando Botero and had already seen his “oversized” sculptures in Medellín and this (free) museum was also worth seeing. After this we walked through the iconic restaurant La Puerta Falsa, Plaza de Bolívar and the busy Séptima to the Plaza del Chorro de Quevedo, the place where Bogotá was founded in 1538.

The last part was uphill and we made a break to catch our breath at Cacao y Cacao.

Around Plaza del Chorro de Quevedo you can see lots of colorful street art.

The objects of the murals range from early indigenous residents to the flora and fauna and social aspects of life in Colombia. You will also find cafes where you can try the traditional drink Chicha, a fermented drink made from corn. Calle del Embudo in particular is a fun and colorful street.

Finally, we decided it was time to order an Uber, which picked us up at 12:30 p.m. at Calle del Embudo and dropped us off at the entrance to Monserrate. What we didn’t  count on was that there was a mega crowd at Monserrate, probably because the funicular (the little train) was under maintenance and everyone had to go by cable car. Both up and down there was a huge line.

ColombiaMyWay tip:
You can avoid the queue by buying a fast pass ticket for COP81,000/$20 instead of the regular tickets of COP29.500/$7.50.  We didn’t do that, because we thought that was a big difference for 4 people. Moreover, the line didn’t seem to be too bad from the outside. Being inside, we noticed it was also completely full inside. So if it fits your budget, then such a fast pass ticket is definitely worth it! When we finally got to the top, the view was amazing.

We had lunch in Santa Clara restaurant, which serves specialties from the different regions of Colombia. We chose the Posta Negra Cartagenera, tender beef in a sauce of panela (cane sugar), coconut rice and stewed banana. This was delicious and we combined it with a glass of Sangria.

After dinner we actually wanted to walk around for a while, but the line for the teleférico back was so long that we decided to get in line right away.

At 4:30pm we began to pick up speed and were almost at the cable car. Finally, we were in the cab at 5:15pm and drove -in rush hour- to the hotel, where we arrived at 6pm. At 6:30pm we were picked up and taken to the Movistar Arena, where we finally arrived well ahead of time.

The concert was beyond my expectations. I am not a real Andre Rieu fan myself, but the show was great and Father Antonio’s smiling face priceless!

One of the highlights was the performance of Colombian boy Daniel Sanabria. He stole the show 5 years ago during André Rieu’s performance. As the power went out, Daniel spontaneously started playing on a plastic flute, surprising the audience as well as the orchestra! André Rieu then bought him a real flute, on which he began practicing fanatically. Now Andre Rieu asked him to perform for the home audience and he would continue doing so on the other 3 nights in Bogotá. Daniel became a full member of the Johan Strauss Orchestra! You can check the video of Daniel’s performance here.

The next day was our last day in Bogotá, before the family returned to Barranquilla. We stayed another week to tour the Quindío region in the Colombian coffee triangle. That’s why we decided to end our last day with a day trip to the Cathedral de Sal in Zipaquirá and Jaime Duque Park, which is 9 kilometers from Zipaquirá.

We had been to Zipaquirá before, but since the new underground museum opened this year, we wanted to go there again. Therefore we hired a taxi driver for the day. We had taken this taxi before and the driver was well prepared. In his (comfortable) taxi we could hear a concert of André Rieu in Vienna -:) The ride took about 45 minutes and it was a relief to walk in the spacious park, with its beautiful gardens and spacious habitats for the animals. The most striking building in the park was a replica of the Taj Mahal from India! After Jaime Duque park, we left for the town of Zipaquirá, where we stopped at the beautiful square.

Zipaquirá seems like a nice town to stay in during a round trip through Colombia. We saw a few hotels in the historic center that looked nice, such as  hotel Camino de la Sal.

We decided to follow our driver’s advice and have lunch at a restaurant near the salt cathedral: Alma Llanera. We did not regret this, because the restaurant was nice to see with all kinds of fun decorations and live music, which quickly set the mood. The food was very good, we had ordered several dishes, from avocado salad, to Aijaco (soup) and grilled meat.

Tip: if you go there for lunch and then to the salt cathedral, you can buy the tickets at the restaurant. With the tickets already in our pockets, we left for the salt cathedral of Zipaquirá. The cathedral was -also the second time- impressive.

After a long but wonderful day with many impressions, it was time to pack our bags for our flight the next day to Armenia in the coffee region. The last night with the family we talked a lot about the special trip and we were invited to visit the family next year in Barranquilla.

Written by Jeanette
Travel period: September 2024