The Capitals of the World: Caracas

Caracas is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, officially known under the name of Santiago de León de Caracas, and located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range, Cordillera de la Costa.

The Metropolitan District of Caracas, or El Distrito Metropolitano de Caracas, includes the Distrito Capital and four other municipalities in Miranda State: Chacao, Baruta, Sucre and El Hatillo. Even though Caracas is Venezuela’s cultural capital, with many restaurants, theaters, museums and shopping centers, it also has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, home to a wide array of immigrants.

Caracas has been a city with great cultural aspirations throughout the course of its history and you can understand this thing by simply walking down its streets filled with historical and cultural structures.

La Plaza Bolívar, known as Plaza de Armas (Weapons Square) until the year 1883 when on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Simón Bolívar, El Libertador, the square received its current name, had been a witness to executions, concerts, fairs, theater and bullfights, but today, this is one of Caracas’s landmarks and the starting point of your visiting tour. In the center of the square you can see a statue of El Liberator and the house where he was born, La Casa Natal de El Libertador, displays a great deal of colonial furniture, works by the famous Venezuelan painter, Tito Salas, which depict some of the most remarkable moments in the life of “El Libertador” and other objects. From here, if you head toward north you can find the colonial Bolívar Museum, which displays a collection of weapons, clothes, documents and portraits of El Libertador, while the La Casa Amarilla, today housing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is one of the best-kept and oldest colonial buildings remaining in the old center of town which once served as royal prison and presidential residence.

To the southwest of La Plaza Bolívar is the El Capitolio, a two-building complex which houses the Federal Palace and the Legislative Palace, but also the “Golden Key” which opens the urn keeping the remains of El Libertador. In this area you can also visit the neoclassical building, the Basílica de Santa Teresa, which houses two churches: Santa Teresa to the east and Santa Ana to the west. The most sacred building in the city is located at five blocks north of La Plaza Bolívar, being the Panteón Nacional, a place where eminent Venezuelans found their last resting place. Located just to the south of the Santa Teresa Basílica is the El Teatro Nacional, opened in 1905 and famous for its ceiling paintings representing dance, music and drama, all done by the famous painter Herrera Toro.

The Museo de Los Niños is a place where you can learn some interesting things about the basic principles of biology, physics, chemistry, art and the laws of the universe; the Natural Science Museum displays an important collection of archaeological remains but also a great diversity of flora and fauna found in South-America and Africa; there are also other important galleries such as the Carlos Cruz-Diez Museum, Transport Museum, the Coin Museum, Raúl Santana Creole Museum, Jacobo Borges Museum, , Alejandro Otero Museum, Sacred Museum, etc.

The memory of Venezuela in images and symbols can be seen at the Museo Audiovisual, a place often used for seminars, workshops and house conferences but also where you can find the most complete audio-visual documentation center of the country. The Piano Museum has a big collection of musical instruments, including Afro-Caribbean and Amerindian, dating back to all kinds of eras.

National library holds a great amount of volumes while the museum of Colonial Art has on show an interesting exhibition of Venezuelan art from the periods previous to its independence with fountains, furniture, colonial courtyards etc.; Caracas has had a Contemporary Art Museum since 1974, containing works representing the most important tendencies in contemporary art, and in the Fine Arts Museum are kept some interesting archeological relics, including examples of precolombine pottery.

If you head east from the Plaza Bolivar you will end up in Parque Central, a concrete complex of five high-rise residential slabs and Caracas’ art and culture hub, with museums, cinemas and the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex, but also home of the two 56-storey octagonal towers. The Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex or Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño, also known as the Teresa Carreño Theatre or Teatro Teresa Carreño, is a place where the city organizes frequent concerts, operas, ballet or theatre event, making it one of the most important Theaters in Venezuela.

The geographical center of Caracas is located in the Plaza Venezuela, a large urban plaza at the entrance of the Central University of Venezuela; at the foot of the 30-story towers, dominating El Silencio District, is Plaza Caracas, built in 1983 and containing shops, restaurants and business centers, with various levels for pedestrian and motorized traffic. The market of the city used to be in the place now known as the Plaza San Jacinto and located among the San Jacinto, San Pablo, El Chorro and Trapos’s corners; while in the northwest part of the square you can see the Sun’s clock, made by Alexander Humboldt when he was in Caracas.

El Hatillo is a small colonial town and one of the few well-preserved colonial areas in Venezuela, located at the south-east suburbs of Caracas in the municipal area of the same name; other interesting cultural locations, but also of high religious value, are the Iglesia de San Francisco, where Bolivar was proclaimed Libertador in 1813 by the people of Caracas and where his funeral was held twelve years after his death, retaining its original colonial interior and housing some 17th century masterpieces of art, carvings, sculptures and oil paintings; the Caracas Cathedral, the burial place of Simón Bolívar’s parents and the home of important works of art such as the Presentation of the Virgin by Murillo, the The Resurrection by Rubens and the unfinished work of the Venezuelan painter Arturo Michelena, the Last Supper, being founded in 1594 and located on the northeast corner of the Plaza Bolívar; and the second largest mosque in Latin America, the Mosque of Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ibrahim.

The Caracas East Park, officially known as the Parque del Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda, is a green paradise in the middle of the city, containing a small zoo and replica of the ship led by Francisco de Miranda, the Leander, in the southern part of the park; it was designed by Brazilian architect Roberto Burle Marx and, in the past, this place was also the home of a replica of the Santa Maria ship, used by Christopher Colombus in his voyages to America.

The Central University of Venezuela or Universidad Central de Venezuela, is the oldest university in Venezuela, founded in 1721 and in 2000, the university campus was designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Buses are the main means of mass transportation, with two systems: Metrobus and the traditional system, running various bus types such as the camioneta; the microbus or the camionetica, being minivans or vans; and the autobus, or large buses. The Caracas Metro has 47 stations, with about 10 more been in construction, and four lines which cover a large part of the city and use an integrated ticket system, that combines the route of the Metro with those offered by the Metrobús; the train services are available to and from Tuy Valley cities of Charallave and Cúa. Caracas is also served by the Caracas Aerial Tramway, the original system having four stations and two sections: between the city of Caracas (1000m) and the top of Avila hill (2100m); and the Avila station that passed over the town of Galipán and finished in El Cojo station in Macuto, working with more than 70 cabins which can travel 3.5 km in little more than 15 minute.

Caracas is also served by the biggest and most important airport in the country, the Simón Bolívar International Airport, located outside the city at approximately 20 miles (32 km) from the downtown area.