San Jose is the capital and the largest city of Costa Rica. Located in the Central Valley, it combines both ancient and modern features without losing its unique Costa Rican traditions. Due to its location in the center of the country, San Jose is an ideal “base camp” for further discovering of the country. In this city, there are many wonderful places to see with your loved one.
- The National Theater
The National Theater is the real pride of the country and a landmark of national importance. The building in which the theater is located was built in 1897, it’s distinguished by a fabulously beautiful interior decoration. Being the largest in Central America, it attracts hundreds of tourists who yearn for cultural attractions. You can come to the theater on an excursion for 10 USD to admire its exquisite interior. Also, you have an opportunity to see a performance, the ticket for which, depending on the place, can cost even cheaper than the excursion.
- La Sabana Park
This green corner of San Jose is a real salvation in a noisy and stuffy capital! Visiting at least one of the national parks of Costa Rica, you begin to experience some dependence on nature, and so staying in the stone jungles of San Jose becomes even more difficult. In the park of La Sabana, you can really slacken cares and take a break from everyday life – arrange a picnic by the side of a lake or go in for sports.
- The Jade Museum
One of the most unusual cultural institutions of San Jose is the Jade Museum. Jade is considered by locals not as a simple ornamental stone but as a powerful gift of the gods. Even in ancient times, people made amulets and religious attributes using this stone. Today everyone can see wonderful crafts and jewelry made of jade and precious metals. In addition to the jade itself, there are the tools of local indigenous people and archaeological excavations.
- The National Museum
The museum offers a rather interesting exposition telling about the history and culture of Costa Rica. It’s located in the beautiful fortress of Bella Vista, where different important historic decisions have been made many times. The collection is very diverse – from archeological artifacts and clothes to photographs of indigenous people and objects of the contemporary art.
- Pre-Columbian Gold Museum
This museum is located on the Plaza de la Cultura. The collection consists of more than one and a half thousand exhibits of gold from the pre-Columbian era, dating from 500 BC to 1500 AD. Visitors of the museum have an opportunity to get acquainted with the very process of making gold products, as well as their social, cultural and religious significance. You can also visit (in the same building) the Numismatic Museum and the Art Gallery. At the entrance, there is a souvenir shop and a tourist office.
- Cerro de La Muerte Peak
Cerro de La Muerte peak is the highest point in Costa Rica. It’s called the “mountain of death”, in view of the difficulty of climbing the mountain and the death of many of its first conquerors.
Today, the mountain is easily accessible for climbing, because it’s located next to the Pan-American Highway. On the mountain, there is a high contrast of temperatures – at night it can fall below freezing, and in the daytime be sufficient for the risk of getting a heat stroke.
The territory of the mountain itself and the surrounding area are rich in vegetation and representatives of the animal world. Here you can find dwarf bamboo, tree fern, blueberries, gooseberries, and others. Also, on the mountain, there are many species of birds.
Next to the mountain, there is the Albergue Mirador de Quetzales restaurant, where you can make a romantic dinner with your loved one after the adventures in the mountains. If you are single, there is a great chance to meet a girl in this restaurant, because it’s a favorite resting place of the most beautiful brides.
- Braulio Carrillo National Park
The national park of Braulio Carrillo is one of the most interesting and unique areas in Central America. It’s a protected environmental zone located northeast of San Jose. The park was founded in 1978. The area of Braulio Carrillo is about 44,000 hectares, and besides most of the territory is high mountains covered with moist tropical forests. A beautiful sight is represented by the extinct volcanoes of Cerro Negro Cacho and Cerros-las-Tres-Marias.
The animal and plant life of the sanctuary is remarkable for its amazing biodiversity. Due to strong differences in altitude, you can find both mountain and lowland flora and fauna in the park.
Thus, Braulio Carrillo is a real paradise for eco-tourists and simple lovers of the wildlife. For admiring all this beauty, there are convenient cable cars – the so-called “air tram”.
