Villa de Leyva is a picturesque colonial town, located 166 km North of Bogota. Colonial style built houses with colorful wooden windows and balconies, narrow alleys, and streets paved with cobblestone gives it a special charm. It has a very big main square (Plaza Mayor), one of the biggest in Colombia, it is a nice place to sit and relax. Villa de Leyva is for sure a place to visit. We spend 2 nights in Villa de Leyva.
How to get to Villa de Leyva
It’s not hard to get to Villa de Leyva. We arrived from Bogota, it’s quite easy, the ride takes 2 hours. When in Bogota go to the main bus terminal (Terminal de buses), we took Uber, they will drop you at gate number 3 where you can buy the ticket. Just ask at one of the tickets selling windows, they will help you, the ticket cost 25.000 pesos. You have a couple of direct buses from Bogota, if you by any chance miss it you have another alternative. Ask for the bus to Tunja (it’s every half an hour), when you get to Tunja, you have another 40 minutes to Villa de Leyva.
Stuff you can do in Villa de Leyva
You have a lot of stuff you can do in Villa de Leyva, you can just take it easy and stroll around the city, eat good food and sit in the main square, drink coffee or beer and observe people walking by.
Things we did on our Villa de Leyva visit:
Casa Terracotta (Terracotta house) Villa de Leyva
Casa Terracotta is one of the most unique and special houses I have ever visited. It’s built by a Colombian architect and designer Octavio Mendoza Morales and he lives there. It’s built only by hand using clay and baked on the sun, which makes it the biggest piece of pottery in the world. To me, it looked like it was built by Gaudi and Salvador Dali, it’s really something extraordinary. Entrance fee is 10.000 COP (2,8 €; 3,15$).
Pozos Azules Villa de Leyva
You can visit Pozos Azules, artificial lakes with blue-green water. You can take a walk to Pozos Azules from Villa de Leyva, it takes a bit more than one hour. We did Casa Terracotta and Pozos Azules on the same day cause it’s in the same direction. You will need to pay entrance fee 10.000 COP (2,8 €; 3,15$). Its a nice and relaxing walk in nature, it took us around one hour, you see 6 lakes and the view is also beautiful. If you go, don’t forget your sunscreen and water, I got sunburned a lot there.
