Medellin, a city in a valley with a lot to do!
Medellin, a city that rests in a valley, one of the most populated in South America, know some activities you can do in this great city.
Well in the last international trip we decided to go to Medellin Colombia to spend a week traveling and getting to know this Colombian city.
In this article I will tell you some great places to visit on your trip to this city.
Explora Park and Planetarium of Medellín
Located in Aranjuez, Medellín, this Planetarium has three floors, each one has a different theme, from geology, astronomy, science fiction, etc. This Planetarium has guides to answer any questions or doubts, but you can also go at your own pace seeing each of the rooms. In one of the sections of the second floor there is an auditorium, in which there is a large circular movie screen where a documentary about the universe, its origin, the etymology of many stars and galaxies etc. is projected.
Approximately a visit to this place lasts between an hour and an hour and a half. It also has a store to buy different types of souvenirs that you want to take for yourself or take to someone in particular.
Just across the street from the planetarium is theExplora Park , which is even larger than the Medellín Planetarium, is
an interactive science museum. Here there are 6 to 7 exhibit halls including a three-story aquarium section, each with a
different particular theme.
There are rooms of different topics of interest among them are: the time room, the mind room, the music room, a reptile room, where you could see: a large anaconda, chameleons and even poisonous frogs. Another room was about the history of communication in which there were dynamics on how to narrate a soccer game, how to record the dubbed scenes of a movie, how animations are made, among others.
Going through each of the rooms can take up to an hour!
As a personal recommendation, I would say not to go to all the rooms in Explora Park in one day, as it can be quite exhausting. I recommend going in two or three times and that way you can enjoy the rooms and themes without having to be saturated with information.
Botero Museum
The internationally renowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero was born in the city of Medellin. There, he has a large museum where there is an exhibition of many of his works both sculptures and the most famous paintings he did; on other floors of the museum there are other exhibitions of other Colombian and international artists, if you like or are interested in art you can spend an hour to two hours in this museum and you will surely like it.
Communa 13
Another of the places we went to was communa 13.
Located in the west of the city of Medellin, you can go by subway or bus. This commune is guarded by the Colombian armed forces or the Colombian police. This area was dangerous a few decades ago, but nowadays it has become an obligatory tourist spot in your visit to Medellin, full of colors, graffiti murals, music, dances, etc.
During the tour in this comuna 13 you can find different artisans who sell sweaters, key chains, license plates, etc.. There are also stalls to eat and / or snack where they sell cheese arepas, others where they sell michilás, which is an alcoholic drink flavored with passion fruit.
From a certain height you can see the city of Medellin, from there you have a panoramic view where you can take good pictures. There is usually a lot of urban music, choreographic dance groups, there are many things going on at the same time in commune 13, you will surely have an entertaining time in this place.
Tour to Guatapé
This was definitely the highlight of the trip, located in the eastern sub-region of the department of Antioquía.
There are many tour agencies from which you can choose to go to Guatapé, usually the tour takes all day as it is approximately two hours to get from the city of Medellin to the town and the tour includes several stops during the day and during those stops you can perform different activities.
In our particular tour, after breakfast, the first stop was at the stone church: Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquirá, then we went to the reservoir of the old town of El Peñol, there was a ferry that gave us a tour of this reservoir which lasted about 30 or 40 minutes. From there we could see the houses where Pablo Escobar lived.
The next stop was at the Peñon is a large geological rock of great size of more than 200 meters high, it has approximately 675 steps to the top, it can take you about 20 to 30 minutes to climb to the top, so be prepared to take physical conditions of the ascent and descent, from the top you can get a spectacular panoramic view of the reservoir of the old town of El Peñol, so take advantage, take out your camera and capture the view!
The next stop was in the town of Guatapé, a small town full of zócalos which are a type of art that every home has on the bottom of the windows of their houses making this town very colorful and is a distinctive attraction of this place.
Among other places you can visit on your visit to Medellin are:
- Shopping malls like unicentro
- El Hueco
- El estadio Girardot
- Complejo Acuático Medellín
If you want to get clothes at an affordable price and / or get imitation clothes you can go to the place called "El hueco", there are plenty of stores and kiosks where you can find what you are looking for. As this is an outdoor place where many people attend my recommendation is not to carry many expensive possessions on you, as far as possible do not take out your cell phone so much and pay with a credit card and if you do not have one, do not count money or money in public.
And this was the trip to Medellin a very charismatic town where people are very attentive and very candid in their reception and treatment with the local and foreigner, sure we will visit it again to continue knowing more of this city!
