The ABC of Finding your Way around Caracas
Caracas is one of the world's hardest cities to get lost in and if you follow our advice on this page you will have no problems in exploring the city safely by day or night. There are only three simple rules ...
A: Know which way is NORTH
The first thing to remember is that Caracas is situated in a long, narrow valley that runs in an east-west direction on the south side of the Ávila mountains. Most of its roads run either east-west or north-south.
As a result, the Ávila mountains can be seen from nearly every intersection in Caracas and IF YOU ARE FACING ÁVILA YOU ARE FACING NORTH.
You may see hills in other directions but there is no mistaking the Ávila, as you can see from the two photographs below, taken at the same intersection.
Photo above courtesy Condor Verde Travel
The steep, green wall of the Ávila mountains, often topped with clouds in the rainy season, shows you that you are facing north.
Depending on where you are in the city, you might see distant rolling hills like this if you are facing east, west or south. Here we are facing south.
B: Know how far you can go
Once you have established your sense of direction, the next step is to know the geographical perimeter within which all the main attractions of Caracas can be enjoyed. The simplest way we can show you this is with reference to the metro. The map below is the most recent one published by the Caracas Metro Company; if it's not the same as the one in your guidebook, this will be because your guidebook is out of date.
LINE 1 (Red) runs along the east-west backbone of Caracas and is naturally the busiest line. With few exceptions, it is the only line that visitors to Caracas will normally use. The main exceptions are:
(1) If you want to visit the zoo, go to Capitolio, then follow the signs for LINE 2, which will take you via a pedestrian subway connection to the El Silencio station, where you take a train for Zoológico. The zoo is pleasant enough but if you're only spending a few days in Caracas there are many more rewarding things to do with your time.
(2) If you are taking a bus from the La Bandera terminal, go to Plaza Venezuela, change to LINE 3 and take a train to La Bandera metro station. The bus terminal is a short walk along a busy main road that is safe enough during the day but not recommended at night.
(3) If you are going to the UCV (see our "Things to See and Do" page), change at Plaza Venezuela for Ciudad Universitaria on LINE 3.
(4)The most recent line, LINE 4, runs parallel to LINE 1 but a little further south and its main purpose is to relieve the pressure on Line 1. The new stations have no major tourist attractions in their immediate vicinities except for Parque Central which is close to the departure point for the airport buses and the Museum of Modern Art. If you're wandering around the historic centre looking for a LINE 1 station and accidentally cross over Avenida Universidad, you'll come to one of the LINE 4 stations, in which case you can take a train to Zona Rental, which has a pedestrian connection to Plaza Venezuela station. However, Zona Rental is a very busy station and unless it's getting dark, it's better to cross over Avenida Universidad again and go to Capitolio or La Hoyada on LINE 1.
LINE 1 runs from Palo Verde in the East to Propatria in the West but its most easterly and westerly stations lie outside our GREEN and YELLOW recommended zones.
We define a GREEN zone as an area in which we think people who are visiting Caracas for the first time and who speak little or no Spanish will not only find many things to enjoy there but can also walk around the area safely both during the day and after dark. A YELLOW zone is an interesting area that the same visitors can explore with confidence during the day but should avoid after dark unless they are accompanied by local people who know the area. Our Approved Guides page provides details of local people who can help you explore YELLOW zones after dark. There are also large areas of Caracas that we don't classify as GREEN or YELLOW even though they are safe enough, simply because they are residential, commercial or industrial zones which you would be wasting your time by visiting.
With this definition, the metro stations Chacao, Altamira and Miranda (which your guidebook may call by its former name, Parque del Este) are in GREEN zones. All these stations lie along Avenida Francisco de Miranda, which is a six-lane road that runs east-west. Almost all of the hotels, restaurants, bars cafes and cultural centres in Chacao, La Castellana, Altamira and Los Palos Grandes lie within a ten-minute walk north of Av. Francisco de Miranda. The areas to the immediate south of Av. Francisco de Miranda are also safe but there are few attractions for visitors. The stations to the east of Miranda from Los Dos Caminos to La California are in areas that are safe enough but they are residential/commercial districts that have nothing to offer visitors, while Petare and Palo Verde should be avoided by visitors who are not accompanied by local residents. For tourists spending a few days in Caracas, there is usually no reason to go east of Miranda station.
Chacaito, the next station west after Chacao, is more difficult to classify. It is the nearest station to the Bar Juan Sebastian and some very good restaurants but it is also at the eastern end of Bulevar Sabana Grande, a YELLOW zone, while El Rosal, the district to the south-east, is mainly a commercial zone that is deserted after dark. For us it is a GREEN zone and if you speak good Spanish and feel confident walking around a city that you don't know after dark you can also treat it as a GREEN zone. But if you feel nervous about it, treat it as a YELLOW zone.
Continuing west, all the stations from Sabana Grande to Capitolio are in YELLOW zones and, again, the major tourist attractions are north of the metro stations. The Chacaito, Sabana Grande and Plaza Venezuela stations all lie on the Bulevar Sabana Grande and there are also some popular restaurants in Avenida Francisco Solano, which runs parallel to Sabana Grande but one block north.
Between Plaza Venezuela and Bellas Artes is the station Colegio de Ingenerios. The area is safe enough during the day but has no tourist attractions in the immediate vicinity. This is the nearest station to the Caracas Mosque. Almost all metro stations close at 11pm but this one shuts at 9pm.
Still heading west, the next four stations are Bellas Artes, Parque Carabobo, La Hoyada and Capitolio. They all lie along a straight main road that is called Avenida Mexico between Bellas Artes and La Hoyada and Avenida Universidad between La Hoyada and Capitolio. As the name suggests, Bellas Artes is the "fine arts" centre of Caracas where many museums, concert halls and theatres are conveniently located a few minutes walk from each other. Walking north from Parque Carabobo you'll come to the district of La Calendaria, renowned for its many Spanish-influenced bars and restaurants and its colonial square and church. The area north of La Hoyada is filled with busy shopping streets, while Capitolio is the nearest station to Plaza Bolivar and the other attractions of the historic centre. The whole area is busy but well-policed and safe during the daytime but for the time being we are still classifying the whole area as a YELLOW zone. If you're walking around this area, look out for the main east-west road called Avenida Urdaneta because unless you're walking to the Panteón Nacional (where Simón Bolívar is buried) there is nothing much of interest north of this road.
We recommend that visitors who don't know Caracas and don't speak good Spanish don't go further west than Avenida Baralt, just to the west of Capitolio metro station.
Once you get to know Caracas, there are many other interesting places that lie outside of our GREEN and YELLOW zones but unless you know the city well we recommend that you keep to our suggested areas.
C: Keep an eye on the clock
The closer you are to the equator, the shorter the time you have between the technical sunset time and the onset of real darkness. Venezuela is north of the equator but not by much and there are no long twilights here.
The top part of the image on the right is a photograph that was taken at the exact moment of sunset in March. In England you would expect to have another hour or more of useful light after the sun sets but in Caracas it will be much less.
As you can see from the lower half of the image, a photograph taken just 30 minutes after the first one, if it's nearly dark here it is nearly very dark!
In Caracas, the sun sets between about 17:30 (November) and 18:30 (July) but we recommend that you be in a GREEN zone after 18:00 unless you are accompanied by locals.