Gold Museum
Fifty-five thousand pre-Columbian gold pieces, including the raft that created El Dorado.
Duration
2 hrs – 3 hrs
Best time
At opening
Open
Closed on Monday
Entry price
To confirm
The Bank of the Republic's museum holds some fifty-five thousand goldwork and ceramic objects from Colombia's pre-Columbian peoples — Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Zenú. It is the largest collection of pre-Columbian gold in the world.
Its best-known piece is the Muisca raft, a ten-centimetre figurine cast by lost wax in a single piece, representing the investiture of a chief on Lake Guatavita: the leader, covered in gold dust, plunged into the water. The Spanish account of that ceremony produced the legend of El Dorado, and the raft is its material proof.
Getting there
Museo del Oro TransMilenio station, or ten minutes on foot from Plaza Bolívar, in La Candelaria.
What the price covers
paid entry, a modest rate to be checked; free on Sundays
Rules on site
Closed on Mondays. Sunday is free and the museum is then full of Bogotá families: pleasant, but the raft room is done in a queue.