Bogotá

Bogotá sits at 2,640 metres, high on a plateau in the eastern Andes, close enough to the equator that the sun is fierce and far enough up that the air never quite warms. The result confounds everyone who books it expecting Caribbean Colombia: days hover around 19°C, nights drop to 8°C, and a cloud can pull the temperature down ten degrees while you cross a square. There are no seasons here in the way the latitude promises, only wetter months and drier ones. What the altitude gives back is a city of eight million laid out on a flat green shelf, the mountains of Monserrate and Guadalupe rising sheer along its eastern edge (a funicular hauls you up Monserrate to 3,150m, where the whole plateau opens out below), and a clarity of light that makes the brick towers glow at five in the afternoon.

When to go

December to February and July to August are the driest stretches, with the most sun and the bluest skies over the cordillera. The wet runs in two bands, roughly April–May and October–November, when afternoon rain is near-daily and reliable. None of it is hot, ever, so pack for an English spring rather than the tropics: layers, a waterproof, shoes you can walk hills in. The compensation for grey skies is that the city empties of crowds and hotel rates soften.

What it's actually like

By day the centre is workmanlike and fast, a working capital of suited commuters, university students around La Candelaria, and the persistent two-note whistle of street vendors selling tinto, the small black coffee that fuels everything. The colonial quarter holds the postcard, all ochre walls, the Botero and Gold museums, and the murals that have crept across Chorro de Quevedo since graffiti was decriminalised, but the energy has long since moved north to Chapinero and Zona G, where the kitchens are doing the most interesting cooking in the country.

Once the sun drops, the temperature follows and the city turns inward, into warm rooms: aguardiente shared around tables, salsa and reggaetón thumping out of Chapinero's bars, the unhurried ritual of a long late dinner. Watch where people are still out walking at night and stick to those streets.

The neighbourhood you want

Stay in Chapinero or the streets around Zona G. It is safe, central, well served by taxis and the TransMilenio bus network, with the city's first metro line still under construction, and puts the best restaurants within walking distance. La Candelaria is worth a day for the museums and the colonial grid, but it thins out and feels edgy once the museums close, so visit rather than sleep there. Usaquén, further north, is the calm, leafy option for a longer stay, with its own colonial square and a good Sunday craft market.

Don't miss

The Sunday ciclovía. Every Sunday and public holiday from 7am to 2pm the city closes more than 120 kilometres of main roads to cars and hands them to cyclists, runners and skaters; around two million people use it. Hire a bike and ride the Carrera Séptima past aerobics classes and juice stalls. Then go early to Plaza de Mercado Paloquemao (open from 4.30am, Sundays from 5am), the produce and flower market where vendors will cut you slices of lulo, granadilla and guanábana to taste; the dawn flower corridor, when trucks arrive from Boyacá, is the version locals actually love. And eat ajiaco at least once, the chicken-and-three-potato stew thickened with guascas that the altitude practically demands. La Puerta Falsa on Calle 11, going since 1816, does the canonical bowl.