Santa Fe de Antioquia: colonial Colombia, ninety minutes and a lot warmer

Santa Fe de Antioquia is the oldest settlement in the department and was its capital until the title passed to Medellín. It is on Colombia's official heritage-town register, and the colonial core — whitewashed façades, wooden balconies, cobbled streets, a cathedral and a string of small plazas — has survived largely intact.

It is about 80 kilometres west of Medellín, through the Túnel de Occidente, and the drive is short by Antioquian standards: roughly an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half.

Getting there

Buses leave from Terminal del Norte, above Caribe station on Metro Line A, with several companies running the route and frequent departures through the day. Published journey times cluster around an hour and fifteen minutes; fares are low, in the $4–$6 range.

By car it is straightforward — the Túnel de Occidente, one of Colombia's longest road tunnels at over four kilometres, cut what used to be a long mountain crossing down to a short one.

Guided day tours run roughly seven and a half to nine hours door to door with hotel pickup, and for this particular town a guide adds more than usual: the appeal is historical rather than scenic, and a town of colonial façades is considerably more interesting when someone explains what you are looking at.

The heat is the planning constraint

Santa Fe sits in the Cauca valley, well below Medellín's altitude, and it is hot. Not pleasantly warm — hot, in a way that surprises people who have acclimatised to Medellín's permanent spring and forgotten what tropical lowland feels like.

The practical version of this: do your walking between arrival and about eleven in the morning, take a long lunch somewhere shaded or indoors, and do the rest in the late afternoon. Carry water and sun protection. A hat is not optional. Retirees who treat this as a cool-highland town and set off walking at one in the afternoon have a bad day, and it is entirely avoidable.

What to see

The Puente de Occidente. A suspension bridge over the Cauca River, built between 1887 and 1895 and now a national monument. It was one of the first suspension bridges in the Americas and it still carries traffic. It is a few kilometres outside town, so take a tuk-tuk or a taxi rather than walking in the heat.

The Plaza Mayor and the cathedral. The centre of the town and the best of the architecture. Several churches sit within a short radius.

The Juan del Corral Museum. Local and regional history. Note that museums here are commonly closed on Mondays — check before building a Monday trip around one.

The town itself. Santa Fe is known for filigree silverwork and for tamarind sweets, and the shops around the centre are the good kind of small rather than the tourist kind.

The cobblestones

Colonial streets in Antioquia are laid with rounded river stones, worn smooth by centuries of use and set unevenly. They are attractive and they are the single most common cause of a turned ankle on these trips.

If you use a cane, a rubber tip designed for uneven ground makes a real difference. If you use a walker or a wheelchair, be honest that most of this town's historic core is not going to work — the plaza and the immediate surroundings are manageable, the side streets largely are not. Sandals and smooth soles are a bad idea in both dry and wet conditions.

Is it worth the trip?