San José

Downtown San José is the historic and vibrant (if noisy and congested) heart of the city. The city's traffic is overwhelming, and the narrow downtown streets, laid out in the days of the oxcart, barely handle the daily influx of vehicles. You can take refuge along the several blocks of Avenidas Central and 4 and Calles 2 and 17 that have been converted into pedestrian malls, and take heart that more of those traffic-free streets—they call them bulevardes here—are on city planners' drawing boards.