The website www.chepetown.com gives you some good addresses for the four main neighborhoods of interest in San José.

In general, you can easily walk the historic city center, starting at the train station al Atlántico close to the Parque Nacional, past the legislative assembly to the Plaza de la Democracia and then always follow the Pedestrian zone of the Avenida central, past the Museo del Jade and the Teatro Nacional, until you eventually get to the Mercado Central.

The Teatro Nacional has a nice colonial coffee house if you want to catch a glimpse of the interior and that famous painting “Allegory of Coffee and Bananas” while going to the restroom without booking a tour. Also, if you are interested more in depth, they offer tours of the building.

Don’t miss the bustling Mercado central, go there for a typical Costa Rican Casado (lunch) and a “refresco de Guanabana” (Guanabana fruit drink) in the “Soda Tapia” – the owners are distant relatives of the Bruno family, so we cannot remain impartial 🙂

As for museums, the Museo de Jade is worth a trip for the recently revised exhibition on Costa Rica’s pre-Columbian past. If you are interested in art, the Contemporary Art Museum  in the city center might be for you, or the museum of Costa Rican Art in the former airport building adjacent to the La Sabana park.

If you are in San José a bit longer, we can recommend Barrio Escalante, especially for eating or going out at night. Overall, the area is a bit upscale, but authentic as it’s heavily frequented by locals. La California is a slightly more affordable night spot, also popular with locals and students.

From San José, you can also make day trips by public bus, for example to the volcanoes Poás or Irazú, if you want to look into a dormant volcano crater (active volcanoes cannot be visited in Costa Rica).