Bogotá began here in 1538, and Plaza de Bolívar has been busy ever since. It was the Plaza Mayor until 1847, when a statue of Simón Bolívar arrived from Italy and the name changed. The Capitolio took nearly eighty years to finish, from 1848 to 1926, which is slow even for a legislature. The Palacio de Liévano, now the mayor’s office, rose in 1904 on the ashes of the Galerías Arrubla, the city’s first shopping mall.

The mood darkens in places. The Palacio de Justicia was rebuilt after the 1985 siege, and the cathedral’s bell tower still carries bullet holes from snipers during the Bogotazo riots.

VoiceMap’s self-guided audio tours use the plaza to trace Colombia’s independence, from the market-day brawl of 1810 that started a revolt to Bolívar’s escape through a palace window, and to explain why bogotanos still meet here.