Archiepiscopal Palace View

This buiding is located in southeastern corner of the Plaza de Bolivar (Bolivar square) It's the home and office of the archbishops.

Virgilio Barco Public Library

One of the largest public libraries in the city, the VB Public Library openned its doors in 2001 and it's part of a big net of libraries along the city. The design was made by Rogelio Salmona, one of the more renowned architects of the country.

Simon Bolivar Central Park

Bogotá citizens just take a rest every weekend in the largest park of the city. With more than 100 hectares this park was open officially to the public in 1991 after planting more than 3.300 native trees. In 1995 was recovered a 11 hectares lake. Inside the park there's a place for events like concerts with a capacity for nearly 80.000 people. The last concert there was Aerosmith, last month. This park is just one part of a bigger complex of parks in the area know as the Simon Bolivar Metropolitan Park, covering a total area of nearly 400 hectares.

A National Amulet

Innocently I took this picture of a sunset in Bogota with out knowing a history behind it. I got interested on the image of the church at the right, because I didn’t know the name of the church that appeared in the picture. I finally found the name of this church which is the Minor Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Basilica Menor del Sagrado Corazón de Jesus) but is more popularly know as the National Vote Church. The history behind this church has to deal with part of the history of the country. It was constructed as a request from an archbishop to the politics of the early twenty century. The construction of the church was considered as a kind of amulet to finish a stupid war in Colombia, known as the War of the One Thousand Days (1899-1902). As all the wars it was a useless conflict between the two principal parties of the country in the struggle for the power. One of the consequences of that war was that Colombia lost Panama and the possibility of constructing the interoceanic canal.