Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá

Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá

A Catholic church carved from a salt mine 180 metres underground, where the fourteen Stations of the Cross and a huge salt cross glow in coloured light like a dream.

Zipaquirá lies about 50 km north of Bogotá, and its salt mines have been worked since the time of the Muisca. In the 1930s miners built a small chapel inside the mine tunnels. The new Salt Cathedral, completed in 1995, was designed by the architect Roswell Galavis and is carved into the rock salt about 180 metres underground. The route descends a sloping path. First come the fourteen Stations of the Cross, each carved from salt rock with a cross and lit in blue, purple and pink. Then you enter the main nave, where a giant central cross about 16 metres tall has been hollowed out of the salt wall, a striking negative space. Nearby are a marble sculpture of the Creation and a 'mirror pool', a very shallow pool of salt water that reflects the dome and creates an illusion. The basic admission package for foreign adults costs about 125,000 to 130,000 pesos and includes an audio guide, a short film about the miners and a light show. It is open daily from about 09:00 to 17:40. Getting there: take a bus from Bogotá's Portal del Norte north terminal, which takes about 1 hour to reach Zipaquirá, then walk 15 minutes. Alternatively, on weekends you can take the 'Tren de la Sabana' tourist train, which passes through the Sabana grasslands and makes a day return trip. The underground tour takes about 1.5 to 2 hours, the temperature is about 14°C, so bring a jacket, and the floors can be slippery.

Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá

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