January 5, 2026
Bogotá’s headline sights each close on a different day of the week, and nobody tells you until you are standing outside one. The Gold Museum shuts on Mondays, the Botero on Tuesdays, the Monserrate footpath on Tuesdays, San Felipe’s galleries on Sundays and Mondays, and the Ciclovía exists only on Sundays and holidays between seven in the morning and two in the afternoon. Right now there is one more: until 25 September the hill is running cable car only on weekdays. This page is the short list of what to do here, arranged around what is open when you arrive.
The short version
Three days is the right number for a first visit. Give the first one to La Candelaria and the Gold Museum, the second to the hill and the north, and the third to whatever the closures pushed out. Do not plan a Tuesday around the Botero, a Monday around the Gold Museum, or a Sunday around anything in San Felipe.
If you only have one day and it is a Sunday, that is better luck than it sounds: the Ciclovía is on, Monserrate costs a third less, and the Gold Museum is free.
The week, laid out
This section is what saves a wasted morning, which is why it comes before the list.
Monday. The Gold Museum is closed, including on public holidays. The Botero is open. The Monserrate footpath is open.
Tuesday. The Botero is closed and so is the Monserrate footpath, which closes for maintenance. The Gold Museum is open. San Felipe’s galleries open today and run to Saturday.
Wednesday. Everything above is open, the Museo Nacional is free from two in the afternoon until five, and the Casa de Nariño guard change falls on the two o’clock and three o’clock visits.
Thursday and Friday. Nothing closes. Friday afternoon is when the city’s traffic turns, so keep the afternoon on one side of town.
Saturday. Last day for San Felipe. Monserrate runs its full Monday-to-Saturday hours and its full Monday-to-Saturday price.
Sunday and public holidays. The Ciclovía takes the main avenues from seven until two. Monserrate drops to a Sunday fare and closes at five instead of ten. The Gold Museum is free and shuts at five. San Felipe is closed. The Casa de Nariño runs afternoon visits only, and the guard change is on them.
Monserrate, and the notice running this month
The hill is the one thing on every list, including ours, and there is a service notice on it as this page is written. The operator states that desde el 31 de agosto hasta el 25 de septiembre, el transporte a Monserrate estará disponible exclusivamente por teleférico, and that at weekends both the cable car and the funicular run. If you were counting on the funicular midweek before the 25th, you cannot have it.
Published hours are Monday to Saturday 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and holidays 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the ticket office closing at the same time as the service.
The 2026 fares, Monday to Saturday and on holidays: round trip $35.000, one way $21.000, over-62s $29.500, fast pass $96.500, adult groups of twenty or more $29.500, school groups $21.000, a pet $12.500, an additional item $8.500, and an athlete’s ticket between 5:30 and 9 a.m. on non-holidays at $11.500. On Sunday the round trip is $21.000 and the over-62 fare $16.500. Pets do not travel on Sundays.
Sunday is the cheapest day on the hill and it is also the busiest, because it is the day Bogotá goes up. That trade is yours to make; we will tell you which way we would take it when you tell us what you want from the view.
There is also a footpath: 2.350 metres long, 1.605 steps, 470 metres of climb, free, open from five in the morning for the ascent and until four in the afternoon for the descent, and closed on Tuesdays. The full account of the hill, the sanctuary and the walk is in our Monserrate guide.
The Gold Museum
The Museo del Oro is the one museum we would not let you skip, and its rules are the ones people get wrong most often.
Closed Mondays, including public holidays. Tuesday to Saturday it runs 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. with last entry at six; Sundays and holidays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with last entry at four. Admission is $21.000 for foreign visitors, $10.000 for Colombians and foreign residents, and $5.000 for students. Under-12s and over-62s are free, and everybody is free on Sundays. No reservation is needed.
Go early on a weekday if you can. The Sunday free admission is real and so is the Sunday queue.
The Botero, which is free and closed on Tuesdays
The Museo Botero sits at Calle 11 número 4-41, a few minutes’ walk from the Gold Museum, and it costs nothing. No reservation, no ticket. It opens Monday and Wednesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sundays and holidays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it is closed on Tuesdays.
That Tuesday closure is the opposite of the Gold Museum’s Monday one, which is convenient if you know it and expensive if you do not. The two are close enough to do in one morning on any day except Monday or Tuesday.
Casa de Nariño, and when the guard changes
You can walk into the presidential palace, free, and almost no visitor does.
The Casa de Nariño runs free guided visits of about forty-five minutes: Monday to Saturday at 9:00, 10:30, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00, and Sundays and holidays at 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00. Twenty people per slot. You register in advance with names and passport numbers, arrive twenty minutes early, and leave bags, cameras and phones behind. No shorts, sandals or sportswear.
The detail worth planning around: the guard change is seen on the two o’clock and three o’clock visits, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. If that is what you came for, those are the six slots in the week that have it.
The Ciclovía, and two official numbers that disagree
On Sundays and public holidays the city closes its main avenues to cars from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and gives them to people on bicycles, on foot and on skates. It has done this since 20 June 1976.
How long is it? The Alcaldía’s own page says 127,69 kilómetros. The IDRD, the district’s recreation and sport institute that runs it, publishes 141,46 kilómetros for 2026, up from 138,24 the year before. Both are government figures and they do not agree; we give you both, because we cannot tell you which is measuring what.
Either way it is the single best two hours a visitor can spend in Bogotá, and it is free.
La Candelaria, in daylight
The old town is where the Gold Museum, the Botero, the Plaza de Bolívar and the Casa de Nariño all are, so most of a first day happens inside about six blocks. Walk it between morning and late afternoon, on the lit and busy streets, and take a car rather than a walk once the light goes.
We have written the neighbourhood properly elsewhere, with the founding story, the churches, the museums and the graffiti rules: our La Candelaria guide. If you would rather be walked through it, two of ours start there: the La Candelaria food tour, then the three-hour graffiti walk.
San Felipe, on the days it is open
The art district is not in the old town and it is not an evening. The Instituto Distrital de Turismo places it in Barrios Unidos, between Carreras 22 and 23 and Calles 74a and 76, and gives the galleries’ hours as Tuesday to Saturday, roughly 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Getting there: TransMilenio along Calle 80 to the Calle 76 station, then about a fifteen-minute walk, or the SITP routes 359, A103 and A900.
Go on a weekday afternoon and treat it as a walk between open doors, not a scheduled event. On a Sunday or a Monday you will find shut shutters and wonder what the fuss was.
Quinta Camacho and the Zona G
North of the centre, Quinta Camacho is the English-brick neighbourhood the city built in the 1930s and has since filled with cocktail bars, small restaurants and shops, and the Zona G around Calle 69 and Carrera 5 is where a good deal of the city’s cooking happens.
This is the half-day that survives rain, because it is indoors by nature. It is also the part of the city where an afternoon turns into an evening without anyone deciding to let it, which is a subject of its own in the Bogotá nightlife guide.
La Macarena
Between the Museo Nacional and the hills, La Macarena is small, steep and full of restaurants, and it is the answer when someone wants to eat well without crossing the city. The Museo Nacional itself is at Carrera 7 número 28-66, open Tuesday to Sunday from 9 to 5, closed Mondays, and free on Wednesdays from two until five and on the last Sunday of the month.
Pair the two. The museum takes about ninety minutes and lunch is four blocks away.
Tejo, which is the national sport by law
Tejo is not a tourist invention. It is Colombia’s national sport by Ley 613 de 2000, and it involves throwing a metal disc at gunpowder packets across a clay court while drinking beer. It is loud, it is legal, and it is the most fun most visitors have here.
We run it as a private tejo evening with a lane reserved, because the good courts are not in places you would wander into.
The altitude
The Alcaldía puts the savanna at about 2.600 metres and the city’s mean temperature at 14 degrees. Monserrate’s summit is 3.152 metres, which is five hundred metres above the streets.
Give the first day to the flat city, not the hill, and drink more water than you think you need. The medical side of that, and what to do if it hits you, is in the Bogotá altitude guide.
Getting between all of this
TransMilenio costs $3.550 in 2026, with a 125-minute transfer window. Taxis run on a meter set by Decreto 042 de 2026: a flag drop of $4.500, then $159 per 100 metres, with a minimum fare of $8.000, an airport surcharge of $8.000, and a night surcharge of $3.800 from eight in the evening to five in the morning and on Sundays and holidays.
Our rule, unchanged: order a car from inside wherever you are rather than raising a hand on the street after dark. The rest of the mechanics are in getting around Bogotá, and the safety picture is in is Bogotá safe.
Three day trips people ask for next
When the city is done, these are the three that come up: the Las Moyas sunrise hike above the city, birdwatching in the Chicaque cloud forest, then a coffee farm day at Hacienda La Coloma. The longer one, east of the city, is La Chorrera.
What we do differently
We check the closing days before we build the days, which is why this page opens with a calendar, not a list. A guide that sends you to the Botero on a Tuesday has not been read by anyone who went.
We also publish the figures with their sources attached, including when two arms of the same government disagree, as they do on the length of the Ciclovía. Where a price or an hour is not published, we say so instead of guessing at it.
Questions travelers ask
How many days do I need in Bogotá? Three for a first visit. Two works if you accept that one closure will cost you something. One works if it is a Sunday.
Which day is worst? Tuesday, if your list is the Botero and the Monserrate footpath, since both close. Monday, if it is the Gold Museum.
Is the Gold Museum really free on Sundays? Yes, for everyone, and it is also busiest then. Under-12s and over-62s are free every day.
Can I walk up Monserrate? Yes. It is 2.350 metres of path, 1.605 steps and 470 metres of climb, free, open from five in the morning, and closed on Tuesdays. Come down on the cable car with a one-way ticket if your knees prefer.
What is running on Monserrate right now? Until 25 September, cable car only on weekdays; both the cable car and the funicular at weekends. The operator publishes changes on its own site and we check it the morning you go.
Can I really visit the presidential palace? Yes, free, in a group of twenty, booked in advance with passport numbers, and with nothing in your hands. The guard change is on the two and three o’clock visits on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Plan it with us
Tell us which days of the week you are here and we will build the list around the closures, not against them, which is most of the work. The full picture of the city is in our Bogotá guide, where to sleep is in where to stay in Bogotá, and everything we run in the city is on our Bogotá tours page.
Sources
Cerro de Monserrate, official site, for the service notice of 31 August to 25 September, the operating hours and the complete 2026 fare table. IDRD, for the Monserrate footpath’s length, steps, climb, hours and Tuesday closure, and for the Ciclovía’s 2026 length of 141,46 kilómetros. Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, for the Ciclovía’s hours of 7:00 a. m. to 2:00 p. m. on Sundays and holidays and its figure of 127,69 kilómetros, and for the savanna’s average altitude of 2.600 metres and the city’s mean temperature of 14 degrees. Banco de la República, for the Museo del Oro and Museo Botero hours, prices and closing days. Museo Nacional de Colombia, for its hours, address and free periods. Presidencia de la República, formulario de visitas, for the Casa de Nariño visit times, the group size, the registration requirements and the guard change. Instituto Distrital de Turismo, visitbogota.co, for San Felipe’s boundaries, gallery hours and transport. TransMilenio, for the 2026 fare and the transfer window. Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad, Decreto 042 de 2026, for the taxi tariff. Ley 613 de 2000, for tejo as the national sport.