The Palace

It pays to have friends in high places. And here that means ..... Isabella!

Yup, she managed to get a bunch of us Gringos in to see the Presidetial Palace!! No small feat, I should add, but Isabella doesn't take no for an answer so.... this Sunday,, we were off!

The palace is located in the 'old' part of town called La Candelaria. But before we headed there we ate at one of the most beautiful, eccentric restaurants there. La Antiquaria used to be an antique store (hence the name), housed in a lovely republic style house. Now the antiques are kept in some of the rooms off the hacienda, and the other rooms, as well as the indoor courtyard area, are all set up with beautiful, white linen covered tables decorated with small bouquets of red roses.






Of course, Isabella knows the owner/chef personally, so as we checked our orders with her (lest we make a mistake....) she headed into the kitchen just to be sure everything was going to be up to par. Yup, only perfection for her Gringos!




Luckily, we all ordered well, and the food was delicious!

From there we went to the palace. I don't have any pictures to post because we weren't allowed to use cameras. The palace is used by Uribe and foreign dignitaries so security is of the utmost importance. I can tell you that it was very Versaille-esque, but not as 'over the top'. It was very tasteful and had a Colombian flare. For example, there was a yellow room, a blue room, and red room, representing the colors of the Colombian flag. There was also some of the world's finest crystal in the form of chandeliers from Austria. The whole place was really quite impressive.

Not that the trip was without, well, concerns..... I will go public as saying that I was in trouble practically the whole day. Here is just a snipet of things you would have heard had you been with us:

"Excuse me, Kathy ~ I am talking" "You are too loud, you must be quiet in the palace or the guards will take you out" "Do not touch anything in the palace... Kathy Lum!"

*sigh*