Plaza de Bolívar, Catedral Primada, Capitolio Nacional and Casa de Nariño

Surrounded by the seats of church, parliament, municipal government, and supreme court, Plaza de Bolívar has served as the ceremonial stage of Bogotá since the city's earliest Spanish layout in 1539. Known as Plaza Mayor during the colonial era and Plaza de la Constitución after independence, the vast stone-paved square took its current name in 1846 when Italian sculptor Pietro Tenerani's bronze statue of the Liberator Simón Bolívar was unveiled at its centre, becoming the first public monument in the capital.

Catedral Primada de Colombia and Capilla del Sagrario

Dominating the eastern side of the square beneath the distant backdrop of Cerro de Monserrate, the Catedral Basílica Metropolitana y Primada de la Inmaculada Concepción y San Pedro is the fourth church erected on this site since 1539. Designed in sober neoclassical stone by Capuchin friar and architect Domingo de Petrés, the cathedral was built between 1807 and 1823 and granted the title of Primate of Colombia by Pope Leo XIII in 1902. Inside its barrel-vaulted chapels rest the remains of conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, independence precursor Antonio Nariño, and colonial painter Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. Immediately south along the same facade stands the Baroque Capilla del Sagrario, completed in 1700, alongside the modern stone front of the Palace of Justice on the northern edge of the square.

Capitolio Nacional and Palacio Liévano

Bordering the entire southern side of Plaza de Bolívar, the Capitolio Nacional houses both chambers of the Congress of Colombia. Commissioned by President Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera and designed in 1847 by Danish-born architect Thomas Reed, the sandstone building took nearly eight decades to complete (1848 to 1926). Rather than crowning the structure with a conventional dome, Reed opened its central courtyard toward the plaza behind a grand portico of Ionic columns, while the interior Elliptic Salon preserves Santiago Martínez Delgado's 1947 fresco of Bolívar and Santander leaving the Congress of Cúcuta.

Along the western side of the plaza stretches the Palacio Liévano, designed in French Renaissance mansard style by architect Gastón Lelarge and completed in 1907 on the site of the former colonial Arrubla arcades; today it houses the office of the Mayor of Bogotá (Alcaldía Mayor).

Casa de Nariño and the 1803 Astronomical Observatory

Directly behind the Capitolio Nacional between Carrera 7 and Carrera 8, the pedestrian plaza of Casa de Nariño leads to the official residence and workplace of the President of Colombia. Designed by Gastón Lelarge and Julián Lombana and inaugurated on 20 July 1908 on the site where independence leader Antonio Nariño was born in 1765, the neoclassical palace encloses an octagonal brick tower in its western garden: the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, designed by Domingo de Petrés and completed in August 1803 as the first astronomical observatory built in the Americas, where scientist Francisco José de Caldas and conspirators met ahead of the 1810 independence uprising. From here, you can walk two blocks east into La Candelaria or north toward the Museo del Oro.