The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquir\u00e1 is a Catholic church carved 180 meters underground inside an old salt mine, an hour north of Bogot\u00e1, and it is the day trip almost everyone makes from the capital. The miners came first: they cut small altars into the rock to ask the Virgin for protection, the idea grew into a church, and the place now calls itself the First Wonder of Colombia. It is also a working attraction with three ticket tiers, a light show, a 3D film and a Tutankhamun museum, so it helps to know what is worth your time before you go down. We run private and shared day trips here from Bogot\u00e1, most of them with the sacred lake of Guatavita in the afternoon, so this is the guide: what the cathedral is, what you see inside, what the tickets cost in 2026, how to get here by car, bus or train, and the day that works.<\/p>\n
Zipaquir\u00e1 is less than 50 kilometers north of Bogot\u00e1, an hour to an hour and a half by road depending on the traffic on the Autopista Norte. The cathedral opens every day from 9 in the morning, the last ticket is sold at 4:40 in the afternoon, and a visit takes about two hours. In 2026 the basic ticket is 125,000 pesos for a foreign adult and 75,000 for a Colombian, with an audio guide included. You can get here by car, by public bus from the Terminal Salitre or the Portal Norte, or on the weekend tourist train from Bogot\u00e1. Our private day trip combines the cathedral with an hour in the town and the hike to the Laguna de Guatavita, ten hours door to door with the entries and lunch included; the shared version costs less and skips lunch.<\/p>\n
Zipaquir\u00e1 sits on a salt deposit of roughly a square kilometer, by the cathedral’s own account, and people have mined it since before the Spanish arrived; under the colony the salt works were a source of income for the viceroyalty, and the town still calls itself the Villa de la Sal. As the mining industrialized and became more dangerous, the miners carved small altars in the tunnels to Nuestra Se\u00f1ora del Rosario de Guas\u00e1, asking for her protection. The idea of turning the great galleries into a church was taken up by the Banco de la Rep\u00fablica, which ran the salt works at the time, and the first cathedral was inaugurated in 1954. It was closed in September 1992 for structural faults, and the present cathedral, designed by the architect Roswell Garavito Pearl and opened in 1995, was carved 180 meters below the surface. It is a functioning Catholic church, with mass celebrated in the main nave and a full program of services in Holy Week.<\/p>\n
The visit is a walk down through the mine. The first part is the Via Crucis, fourteen stations of the cross along 386 meters of tunnel, each one a cross cut from the salt rock and lit in changing colors; this is the part everyone photographs, and it is more moving than it sounds when the tunnels are quiet. Then comes the dome, carved by seven miners, eight meters high and eleven across, from which you look down on the cross the cathedral describes as the largest ever carved in salt, and on the three naves below it: the Nave of the Nativity, the Nave of Life and the Nave of Death and Resurrection. The pews and the altar of the main church stand in front of the great cross. Around them are the narthex, a mirror of water so still that it doubles the ceiling, a projection and light show, a 3D short film, a 4D brine experience and an archaeological museum. The standard and premium tickets add a Tutankhamun museum and a city tour, and the premium ticket adds the Ruta del Minero, where you go into the galleries in a helmet, chip salt from the wall and take it home. The floor is level and the walk is easy; it is cool below ground and the air is salty enough to taste.<\/p>\n
Tickets are sold as passports, on the cathedral’s website or at the ticket office, and these are the 2026 prices. The Basic passport, which covers the cathedral, the audio guide, the Via Crucis, the naves, the dome, the mirror of water, the projection show, the 3D film, the brine experience, the archaeological museum and the exit train, costs 125,000 pesos for a foreign adult and 110,000 for a foreign child or senior; Colombians pay 75,000 and 60,000. The Standard passport adds the city tour and the Tutankhamun museum for 136,000 and 122,000 pesos, or 88,000 and 74,000 for Colombians. The Premium passport adds the Ruta del Minero and the climbing wall for 164,000 pesos, or 116,000 for Colombians, and has age limits. Children under four enter free; children are four to twelve, adults thirteen to fifty-nine and seniors sixty and over. A professional guide costs 110,000 pesos extra at the ticket office, parking 13,000 and a locker 7,000. The cathedral opens every day from 9:00 in the morning to 4:40 in the afternoon, when the last ticket is sold, with longer hours in Holy Week. Refunds are given only on tickets bought directly from the cathedral and only for force majeure, so buy for a day you are sure of.<\/p>\n
By car.<\/strong> Take the Autopista Norte out of the city, pass the Andes toll and continue on the Ch\u00eda to Zipaquir\u00e1 road; in Zipaquir\u00e1, the entrance to the cathedral is at the Parque Villaveces, at the top of the town. Count an hour to an hour and a half each way, more on a Sunday evening coming back. You pass Ch\u00eda on the way out, and what is there is in our Ch\u00eda guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n By bus.<\/strong> Buses to Zipaquir\u00e1 leave from the Terminal de Transporte in Salitre and from the TransMilenio Portal Norte; get off at the Parque de la Esperanza, on Carrera 15 with Calle 4, and take a taxi or walk about fifteen minutes uphill to the cathedral. The city of Bogot\u00e1 put the fare at 8,000 to 13,000 pesos in 2024. It is the cheapest way, and it works if you have the time.<\/p>\n By train.<\/strong> The Tren Tur\u00edstico de la Sabana runs to Zipaquir\u00e1 on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: it leaves the Gran Estaci\u00f3n shopping center at 8:45, stops at Usaqu\u00e9n at 9:15 and arrives in Zipaquir\u00e1 at 10:45; the return leaves at 3:15 in the afternoon and is back in Usaqu\u00e9n at 4:45 and at Gran Estaci\u00f3n at 5:15. The station is about 1.7 kilometers from the cathedral, with a bus laid on. The operator’s 2025 fare was 96,000 pesos for an adult and 90,000 for children from three to twelve and for seniors, and it does not include the cathedral ticket or food. It is a slow eight and a half hours and a good day in itself; it is not the way to also see Guatavita.<\/p>\n With us.<\/strong> Our private day trip picks you up at your hotel in Bogot\u00e1, drives you north in sixty to ninety minutes, gives you two hours inside the cathedral with your guide and an hour in the town, and then goes on to Guatavita for the afternoon, ten hours door to door. If you want the cathedral alone, we do that too, and the shared version leaves with a minimum of two people.<\/p>\n