After the Maratón de San José: The Gold Museum

The Route: La Sabana → Plaza de la Cultura → Plaza de la Democracia Logistics: Around 15 minutes by taxi from La Sabana. Admission to the gold museum is roughly US$12. Allow 90 minutes there, or half a day with the National Theatre and the National Museum added. Marathon Month: December Duration: Half day

La Sabana ──(≈15 min taxi)──> Plaza de la Cultura
                                    │
                            Gold Museum (3 floors down)
                            Teatro Nacional (next door)
                                    │
                            (10 min on foot east)
                                    ▼
                         Museo Nacional, Plaza de la Democracia

San José is not a city that rewards wandering, and after a marathon that is fine, because the two or three things worth seeing are within ten minutes of each other in the centre. The Museo del Oro Precolombino is the best of them and it is entirely indoors, air-conditioned and on the flat.

The gold

The museum occupies three floors excavated beneath the Plaza de la Cultura, which means you descend into it from the square. The collection runs to over 1,600 gold objects made between roughly 500 and 1500 AD by the indigenous cultures of what is now Costa Rica: pendants, figures of frogs and birds and shamans, and a great deal of very small, very precise work in hammered and cast metal.

The display is arranged to explain how the objects were made and what they were for, and the labelling is in Spanish and English throughout. Ninety minutes covers it properly. The Museo de Numismática, on Costa Rican currency, is in the same complex and included in the ticket, and takes another twenty minutes if you want it.

The National Theatre

The Teatro Nacional stands on the same square and is the other reason to be here. It was paid for by a coffee export levy and opened in 1897, in a deliberate attempt to persuade European performers that San José was worth the journey. The interior is marble, gilt and painted ceilings, and there are guided tours through the day for a small fee. There is also a café in the lobby, which is the best place in the centre to sit down.

The National Museum

Ten minutes east on foot, at Plaza de la Democracia, the Museo Nacional occupies the Bellavista fortress, a former army barracks whose walls still carry bullet damage from the 1948 civil war. Costa Rica abolished its army the following year, and the museum was put in the building as the point of doing so.

Inside there is a walk-through butterfly garden at the entrance, pre-Columbian archaeology including several of the stone spheres from the Diquís delta, and a colonial and republican history section. The climb up to the entrance is the only gradient of the day.

Where to Stay and Eat

Where to stay: Barrio Amón and Barrio Escalante, north and east of the centre, have the converted coffee-boom houses and the better small hotels. La Sabana, by the race start, is greener and further out.

Where to eat: Barrio Escalante is where San José eats, a few streets of restaurants and coffee bars within a short taxi ride of the centre. In the centre itself, the Mercado Central is the traditional option for a casado at a counter, and it is busy and cheap.

Getting Home