We arrive this time to a place that immediately moved us to those thrilling visits we had as kids, a little like this was the felling upon arrival. And because of that, we cannot stop recommending this when you plan your trip to our country.
On the ground floor of the great Culture Plaza in downtown San José there is an interesting journey through the story of our currency, pre-Columbian gold of our ancestors and Costa Rican art. This place is called "Museums of the Central Bank of Costa Rica", but is popularly known as " Gold Museums" due to the great diversity of objects made with gold.
This engaging building -that internally has an inverted pyramid shape-was built in 1982 by three well-known Costa Rican architects (Jorge Borbón, Jorge Bertheau, Edgar Vargas). It is composed of three sub-levels where three areas are installed: Archeological (pre-Columbian design), Numismatic (coins and bills from our country) and Visual Arts (Costa Rican artists show their art). It is even more interesting for the visitor to hear that the Museums have an award given by the ATLAS of World Architecture, English Edition. Nevertheless, the true birth of this place comes from 1950 because everything started in an office in the Central Bank of Costa Rica.
And well… we started the tour with our tour guide of that day, Patricia Fernández from the area of Education, at the numismatic salon, where you can observe the first coffee tickets or coffee farms chips used as currency for the workers. At the same tiem, the temporary exhibition halls captured our attention; she commented that there are normally two to three exhibitions per year.
Later, we entered the expected "Pre-Columbian Gold Museum", where the different stages of development of the indigenous groups in Costa Rica are projected. It is also possible to observe the different designs in gold that have been found in our country, specifically after a large excavation of an indigenous cemetery tomb in "Palmar Norte" in the year 1950 where they found 88 pieces; and also in the "Diquis" sub-region, where they additionally found a large variety of pieces in this material.
Talking to Dayana González, a worker from the Communications Department of this place, the Museums show the Costa Rican history in a different way depending of each of the three areas. Being the numismatic collection one of the biggest in the world and the Gold Museum one of the only three Gold Museums in the world, and in the last part of our tour, there is no doubt that you have to visit this place in Costa Rica.
For more information: www.museosdel bancocentral.org Opening hours: from Monday to Friday, 9:15 to 17:00. The place is open to local and international visitors.