Bogotá holds more than 60 museums, a free national art collection donated by Fernando Botero, and a mural scene that turned an entire downtown district into an open-air gallery. Three days of galleries, theatres and workshops.
Fernando Botero donated 123 of his own works plus 85 international pieces — Picasso, Monet, Dalí, Renoir — to the Banco de la República in 2000, on the condition entry stays free forever. Open Wed–Mon 09:00–19:00, closed Tuesdays.
The Banco de la República's art museum, connected to Museo Botero by an internal courtyard. Nineteen rooms trace Colombian art from colonial religious painting to Obregón and Grau, plus a rotating contemporary programme.
A 1647 single-nave church turned museum, its barrel vault covered in 148 gold-framed paintings and polychrome saints — one of the densest surviving examples of Nuevo Reino de Granada baroque. Tue–Fri 09:00–17:00, weekends 10:00–16:00.
Three curved red-brick towers built 1965–70 around the bullring, Salmona's masterwork and the building that defined Bogotá's brick modernism. Walk the public ramps and terraces between the blocks — they stay open to anyone.
Colombia's national theatre, opened 1892 for the Columbus quatercentenary, with a horseshoe auditorium of 800 seats, a ceiling painted by Annibale Gatti and Italian marble throughout. Guided tours run Tue–Fri and include backstage.
Open since 1958 and the meeting point for Bogotá's actors, poets and university crowd. Tinto served at marble-topped tables, with the plaza's Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada statue and busking accordion players outside.
The country's oldest museum (1823), housed since 1948 in El Panóptico — a Thomas Reed-designed Greek-cross prison of 1874. Cells now hold archaeology, colonial art and 20th-century painting across three floors. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00.
A 1,300-seat main hall in Bogotá's north, opened 2010, with acoustics tuned by Artec and a season spanning the Filarmónica de Bogotá, contemporary dance and international opera. Second stage seats 450 for chamber work.
A tip-based walk started after the 2011 police shooting of teenage writer Diego Felipe Becerra, which pushed the city toward tolerating street art. Guides are working artists covering Toxicómano, Guache, DJLU and Stinkfish. Meets daily at Parque de los Periodistas.
Rogelio Salmona's 2001 spiral of red brick, water channels and ramps in Parque Simón Bolívar — a public library treated as landscape. The roof terrace and reflecting pools are open to anyone, no card required.
Usaquén's colonial plaza and surrounding lanes hold ceramic, leather and textile workshops in restored 18th-century houses. Sunday brings the Mercado de las Pulgas, with roughly 300 stalls of craft and antiques around the church.
The rough plaza where Bogotá was reputedly founded in 1538, now the city's storytelling corner: cuenteros perform after dark and the funnel-shaped alley behind it sells chicha, the fermented maize drink, in ceramic cups.