Villa de Leyva – 445 year old UNESCO town

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About 100 miles outside Bogota is Villa de Leyva. a quaint Colonial town some 445 years old. Went there to take some of the sting off turning *cough*somethingsomething*cough, enjoy the sites of the Colombian countryside as well as the village itself.

Getting there from Bogota wasn’t terribly complicated. Head to the North Terminal in Bogota, which has a series of kiosk open in an actually well-organized manner, score a bus ticket for Tunja, which is the bulk of the way there.

Once in Tunja you disembark at their much smaller station. Getting to Villa de Leyva isn’t hard from there. The moment we got off our bus, being clear gringos, we got approached “Villa de Leyva?” and directed to a mini-bus, 10 minutes later we were on our way.

Town itself is fairly small, but has a variety of activities. We didn’t do too much, though, as it was just an overnight trip and we wanted to enjoy the town, the massive square, sample some of the foods. In the evening the square filled up for outdoor movie viewing. Families were hanging out, kids eating ice cream, adultos sampling aguardiente, a Colombian firewater I later sampled myself.

Short, but fun trip. If in Bogota and looking for an overnight roadtrip activity to escape Big City, this might be right up your alley.


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