Central Valley
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Central Valley - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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11 Recommendations
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1. Café Britt
The producer of Costa Rica's most popular export-quality coffee gives a lively Classic Coffee Tour highlighting the history of Costa Rica's coffee cultivation through a theatrical presentation that is admittedly a bit hokey. Your "tour guides" are professional actors, and pretty good ones at that, so if you don't mind the song and dance, it's fun. (You might even be called upon to participate.) During the 1½-hour tour, you'll take a short walk through the coffee farm and processing plant, and learn how professional coffee tasters distinguish a fine cup of java. A two-hour Coffee Lovers tour delves into the process at a more expert level. You'll leave the new all-day Coffee Origins tour feeling like even more of an expert, delving into the environmental issues surrounding coffee. You can also stop in at Britt's Coffee Bar and Factory Store. Although all three tours are devoted entirely to the production and history of Costa Rica's most famous agricultural product, Britt is also a purveyor of fine chocolates, cocoas, cookies, macadamia nuts, and coffee liqueurs; you'll see its products for sale in souvenir shops around the country and at the airport as you leave. The standard coffee tour is often a half-day inclusion on many Central Valley tours operated by San José tour companies, combined with the Poás volcano, the La Paz waterfall gardens, or Rainforest Adventures.
Heredia, Heredia, 40201, Costa Rica800-462–7488-in North AmericaSight Details
Rate Includes: From $27 -
2. Parque Central
Heredia is centered on tree-studded Parque Central, which gets our vote for the country's loveliest and liveliest central park, surrounded by some notable buildings spanning more than 250 years of history. The park has a large, round, cast-iron fountain imported from England in 1879 and a Victorian bandstand where the municipal band plays on Sunday morning and Thursday night. Families, couples, and old-timers sit on park benches, shaded by fig and towering palm trees, often inhabited by noisy and colorful flocks of crimson-fronted parakeets. Drop into Pops, a national ice-cream chain, at the south side of the park and pick up a cone, then take a seat on a park bench and watch the passing parade.
C. Ctl., Avda. Ctl., Heredia, Heredia, 40101, Costa Rica -
3. Toucan Rescue Ranch
One of Costa Rica's many animal-rescue facilities, Toucan Rescue Ranch is a great place to see wildlife. There are more than just toucans—the good-hearted folks here care for many sloths and owls, too. The ultimate goal is to return the animals to the wild; the frail condition of some means that this will be their permanent home. The general 2½-hour walk focuses on observing the facility's work with toucans and sloths. Tickets must be purchased in advance on the facility’s website.
Heredia, Heredia, Costa Rica2268--4041Sight Details
Rate Includes: From $62, Closed Mon., Reservations required -
4. Barva de Heredia
About 3 km (2 miles) due north of Heredia, this colonial town is famous for mask making and for its Parque Central, still with the original adobe buildings with Spanish-tile roofs on three sides, and a white-stucco church to the east. The park is filled with whimsical sculptures, including a park bench shaped like an entire seated family, and bizarre masks and clown's heads decorating garbage receptacles. An amphitheater and stage stand ready for the annual mask festival held every August. (A less pleasant part of the August festival is the tradition of smacking one's fellow townspeople with cow or pig bladders—perhaps not a good time to visit.) The stout, handsome church with terra-cotta bas-relief flourishes dates from the late 18th century and has a lovely grotto shrine to the Virgin Mary in the church garden. On a clear day you can see verdant Volcán Barva towering to the north.
Barva, Heredia, 40201, Costa Rica -
5. Casa de la Cultura
Next to the Fortín, the tile-roof building with the handsome wood veranda is Heredia's Casa de la Cultura, which almost always has a free exhibition by local artists. Inside is a very small museum of town history, as well as a handsome inner atrium, with wooden galleries, where concerts are often held. The house was originally the stately home of early-20th-century president Alfredo González Flores (1877–1962).
Avda. Ctl., C. Ctl., Heredia, Heredia, 40101, Costa Rica2261–4485Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. Costa Rica Meadery
Costa Rica's climate sadly doesn't allow for wine grapes to flourish, but crafty brewers have discovered perhaps the next best thing: mead, which is created by fermenting honey with water. This farm is the first and currently only meadery in the country, with the mead's honey coming directly from the farm's nearby beehives and other local beekeepers. The meads are flavored with a variety of tropical fruits and flowers, including passion fruit and hibiscus. Book ahead to enjoy one- or two-hour tours of the farm, hives, and production facility, all ending with a tasting. You can also just visit the tasting room for a half-hour tasting, accompanied by honey and cheeses (advance reservations are still required). They occasionally host dinners too. The meadery proudly practices environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically viable sustainability.
Calle La Sabaneta, Santa Bárbara de Heredia, Heredia, Costa Rica8718–4094Sight Details
Rate Includes: Tour $25 -
7. Fortín
On the north side of the Parque Central in its own little park stands a strange tower, built as a military post in the 1870s. It never did see action and now serves as the symbol of the city, one of the few military monuments in this country without an army. The tower is closed to the public. The old brick building next to the Fortín is the Palacio Municipal (Town Hall).
C. Ctl., Avda. Ctl., Heredia, Heredia, 40101, Costa Rica -
8. Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción
On the east side of the park stands this impressive neoclassical church that locals refer to as simply "La Inmaculada." It was built between 1797 and 1804 to replace an adobe temple dating from the early 1700s and is one of the few structures in Costa Rica remaining from the colonial era. The flat-fronted, whitewashed church has thick stone walls, small windows, and squat buttresses, which have kept it intact through two centuries of earthquakes and tremors. The serene, white interior has two rows of stately, gold-trimmed Ionic columns marching down a long aisle, past 20 lovely stained-glass windows constructed in France. The church is flanked by tidy side gardens, where you can stroll among sculpted trees along concrete paths incised with a floral pattern. The church's soft exterior illumination brightens up the park nightly from 6 pm until midnight.
Eastern side of Parque Central, Heredia, Heredia, 40101, Costa Rica2237–0779 -
9. Mercado Nuevo
Three blocks southeast of the Parque Central is Heredia's covered New Market—that's how everybody refers to it here—officially the Mercado Central, which holds dozens of sodas (simple restaurants) along with the usual food stands and vendors supplying the day-to-day needs of the average Costa Rican. While generally safe, the crowded conditions here do invite the occasional pickpocket. Watch your possessions.
C. Ctl., Avda. 6, Heredia, Heredia, 40101, Costa Rica -
10. Museo de Cultura Popular
At the edge of a middle-class neighborhood between Heredia and Barva, this museum is housed in a farmhouse with a large veranda built in 1885 using an adobe-like technique called bahareque. Run by the National University, the museum is furnished with antiques and surrounded by a garden and a small coffee farm. Just walking around the museum is instructive, but calling ahead to reserve a hands-on cultural tour (such as one on tortilla making) really makes it worth the trip. An open-air restaurant serves bread baked in a clay oven, and fresh tortillas and tamales.
Heredia, Heredia, 40201, Costa Rica2260–1619Sight Details
Rate Includes: $2, Closed Sat. -
11. San Rafael de Heredia
This quiet, tidy coffee town 2 km (1 mile) northeast of Heredia has a large church notable for its stained-glass windows and bright interior. The road north from the church winds its way up Barva Volcano, ending atop the Monte de la Cruz lookout point with a commanding vista of San José and the Central Valley.
San Rafael de Heredia, Heredia, 40501, Costa Rica
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