Mercado Central
Covered aisles since 1880, sodas — the local canteens — and the country's best coffee at the counter.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 30 min
Best time
Between 11am and 1pm
Open
Closed Sunday
Entry price
Free
The market opened in 1880 and takes up a whole block under one roof, punched with skylights. It has several hundred stalls, in aisles so narrow you pass sideways.
You come for the sodas, the local canteens: a casado — rice, black beans, plantain, salad and a meat — is served for a few thousand colones. Coffee is drunk at the counter, filtered through a chorreador, the cloth filter stretched on a wooden stand.
Getting there
Between Avenida Central and Avenida 1, in central San José. Ten minutes on foot from the Teatro Nacional.
Rules on site
The aisles are packed and pickpocketing is common: bag in front, phone away. The market closes on Sunday, and in the early evening the rest of the week.
Other places in San José
Poás VolcanoAn active crater a kilometre and a half wide, seen from a lookout fifty minutes' drive away.
- National TheatreAn Italian-style opera house built with coffee money, in the middle of the capital.
Pre-Columbian Gold MuseumSixteen hundred pieces of gold worked before the Spanish arrived, beneath the Plaza de la Cultura.
La Paz Waterfall GardensFive falls in succession on the volcano road, in cloud forest.