2 Best Sights in Caracas, Venezuela

Venezuela's Congress is housed in the neoclassical National Capitol, a pair of buildings constructed on the site of the 17th-century convent of the Sisters of the Conception. President Guzmán Blanco, who ordered the disbanding of all convents, razed the original building in 1874. On the site he built the Federal and Legislative palaces. The paintings in the oval Salón Elíptico by Venezuelan artist Martin Tovar y Tovar are quite impressive, especially those on the ceiling. The bronze urn in the room contains the 1811 Declaration of Independence. (In deference to decorum, you must tuck in your shirt when you enter this room.)

This graceful colonial building, set around a manicured courtyard, is considered the cradle of Venezuelan statehood. On July 5, 1811, the National Congress met here and approved the Declaration of Independence. Today the building houses the Museo Criollo, which exhibits a permanent collection of works by noted Venezuelan painter Emilio Boggio (1857–1920) and scale-model miniatures by Raúl Santana that depict every imaginable aspect of Venezuela's early culture.