Santa Fé de Antioquia
Founded in 1541, this is the previous capital of Antioquia. It is said to be the colonial centre Medellin does not have. Indeed in 1826, Medellin, 60kms away from Santa Fe, became the new capital of Antioquia. It is a jewel of colonial art, especially colonial architecture. Its narrow paved streets are lined with old houses made of bricks and rocks, with white fronts and sculpted wooden balconies. The city has 4 squares and magnificent churches all around. There you can taste an unbelievable variety of fruits that barely anyone knows about. The city is also known for its gold and silver watermarking. Indeed, the rich water network around has always been know to provide gold, so the people slowly learned to work with it. The visit of a workshop is almost always on our stop list. We can also stop in 2 museums: Juan del Coarral museum and the religious art museum Fransisco Cristobal Toro. In Santa Fe de Antioquia, the temperature is hot, very hot. During the day, temperature reaches 35 degrees in the shade nearly everyday. So we take a tuctuc (as we cannot go by car anymore) to the suspended bridge over Rio Cauca, masterpiece of local engineering and architecture, about 150 years old, 300m long. And then we go a little further, in a village called Sucre, to cool down in the waterfalls and natural pools adjacent, and we usually eat there. For wine lovers, we can also visit a winery in the village of Olaya (a little further on the same road). Wineries are not common in the country. If we intend to head to the Caribbean Sea and choco caribeno, we will get up early in the morning, hit the road by 5am, and take the boat in Turbo at noon.