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Museo Nacional Review

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Museo Nacional

Address: C. 17, between Avdas. Central and 2, Barrio La Soledad, San José
Phone: 257-1433
www.museocostarica.go.cr

National Museum

Category: Museums/Galleries
Location: San José

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Fodor's Review:

In the whitewashed Bellavista Fortress, which dates from 1870, the National Museum gives you a quick and insightful lesson in English and Spanish on Costa Rican culture from pre-Columbian times to the present. Glass cases display pre-Columbian artifacts, period dress, colonial furniture, religious art, and photographs. Some of the country's foremost ethnographers and anthropologists are on the museum's staff. Outside are a veranda and a pleasant, manicured courtyard garden. A former army headquarters, this now-tranquil building saw fierce fighting during a 1931 army mutiny and during the 1948 revolution, as the bullet holes pocking its turrets attest. But it was also here that three-time president José "Don Pepe" Figueres abolished the country's military in 1949.

Cost: $4
Open: Tues.-Sat. 8:30-4:30, Sun. 9-4:30

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