San Jose Walking Tour

Start at the Plaza de la Cultura (Culture Square), a plaza that serves as a meeting point for marimba bands, religious street preachers, clowns, vendors who sell handicrafts, South Americans playing Andean music and pigeons. It is surrounded by shops and fast food restaurants. Teatro Nacional leads the southern half of the plaza and the historic Grand Hotel Costa Rica its western edge.

Walk to the eastern end of the Plaza de la Cultura where wide stairs will guide you down to the Museo de Oro Precolombino, whose gold collection deserves a good hour or two. This museum holds the largest collection of pre-Columbian gold jewelry in Central America. It contains indigenous jewels depicting numerous animals- frogs, birds, snakes, insects, crocodiles, lobsters and even sharks. Some of the most spectacular are the varied Shaman figures. The Museo de Numismática or the Coin Museum, is located in the same building. Its exhibition includes a repository of historic coins and bills, as well as other objects used as monetary objects.

Walk around the bustling plaza and slip into the Teatro Nacional for a look at the elegant interior and have a cup of Costa Rican premium coffee and an exquisite pastry in the lobby Café del Teatro Nacional. This is definitely the most charming building in San José. In 1890 wealthy coffee exporters raised import taxes in order to be able to hire Belgian architects to design this building, abundant with cast iron and Italian marble. The sandstone exterior is marked by Italian arched windows and statues of Beethoven and Spanish play writer Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Inside the building take a look at Italian painter Aleardo Villa´s famous mural ¨Alegoría del Café y Banano¨, a fresco that depicts coffee and banana production and which also appears on Costa Rica’s old five colones bill. The theatres interior has a sumptuous neo-Baroque style which you can better enjoy attending a performance.

Leaving the theatre, you’ll be facing west, with the city’s main east bound corridor, Avenida 2 to your left. Walk 1 ½ blocks west along Avenida 2 to the Parque Central the city’s nucleus, and the Catedral Metropolitana the National Catholic Cathedral, built in 1871 after the original was destroyed in an earthquake. Its ample interior has elegantly painted columns made of wood. The high altar is under an ornate cupola ceiling. The flamboyant Teatro Popular Melico Salazar sits on the north side of the park. It is San José’s second major performance hall built specifically to provide a less highbrow alternative to the Teatro Nacional.

Cross Avenida 2 and head north one block on Calle Central to Avenida Central, where you should turn left and follow the pedestrian zone to the small plaza next to Banco Central, the Federal Reserve Bank building. Witness Fernando Calvo´s sculpture ¨Presentes¨, 10 sculpted figures of ¨campesinos¨. Continue west along the pedestrian zone to the Mercado Central. The Central Market is a traditional place which time hasn’t changed. It is an interesting place to observe and share with the average Costa Ricans. Walk through the narrow passages where you will see hundreds of traditional toys, pets, wood and leather crafts, candles, religious images and smell the great mix of spices, coffee, flowers, natural herbs, fruit and food. It is a great place to stop and enjoy a typical dish ¨Casado¨, ¨Ceviche¨ or ¨Olla de Carne¨. Sodas (small restaurants) are very cheap and most of them prepare nice dishes with fresh ingredients.

Head back east two blocks on the Avenida Central pedestrian zone, then turn left on Calle 2, and walk one block north to the green and gray stucco building dating from 1917, Correos de Costa Rica, the central post office. Stamp collectors should stop at the Museo Filatélico upstairs. It’s interesting seeing how the country’s history has been represented in stamps. From there turn to Avenida Central and walk east along the mall back to the Plaza de la Cultura.

From the eastern end of the Plaza de la Cultura, near the Museo de Oro, walk two blocks north on Calle 5 to Parque Morazán, anchored by El Templo de la Música, a neoclassical bandstand that has become the symbol of the city. Occasionally national bands play there. Walk across the park and head along the yellow metal school building, the ¨Edificio Metálico¨, an elementary school designed by French architect Victor Baltard, who also did Les Halles in Paris. Cast of iron in Belgium in 1892, it was shipped overseas and assembled on the site. Cross the street to Parque España. On the north side of the park, on Avenida 7, is the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) , whose 11th floor Museo de Jade has an extensive and impressive pre-Columbian art and jewelry collection. It is the world’s largest collection of pre-Columbian American jade. The exhibit in this museum is the largest American jade collection in the world. The collection is extremely valuable because of the rarity of the mineral and of the religious and historical significance that it has for the Indigenous population. A series of drawings explains how this extremely hard stone was cut using string saws with quartz and sand abrasive. Newt to the INS building is the Casa Amarilla, a large yellow mansion that houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In front President John F. Kennedy planted the large Ceiba tree when he founded the Alliance for Freedom in 1963.

Pass through the entrance to the Centro Nacional de la Cultura, on the east side of Parque España, the former National Liquor Factory complex, now renovated as a cultural center.

The southeast entrance of the Cento Nacional de la Cultura emerges onto Parque Nacional. Take a look at the Monumento Nacional at the center of the park. Afterwards, head a block east to the Museo de Formas, Espacios y Sonidos, formerly the Atlantic Railway Station, and explore new dimensions in spaces and sounds. Two blocks beyond lies the Antigua Aduana, the old customhouse. Head back 4 blocks on the Avenida Central to the entrance of the Museo Nacional, housed in the old Bella Vista Fortress. This museum will give you a quick and insightful lesson of Costa Rican culture from pre-Columbian period until present. The archaeological room offers several Indian artifacts made of stone and clay. The colonial room exhibits facts about the conquest and some samples of religious art brought by the Spaniards.

On the west side of the fortress lies the terraced Plaza de la Democracia; from here you can walk west on Avenida 2 to the Museo para la Paz, a museum dedicated to the cause of peace and social justice. Another three blocks east on Avenida 2 and north on Calle 3 returns you to the Plaza de la Cultura.