The coloured balconies
Red, blue and yellow around the square.
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The main square of Jardín is the heart of a mountain town in south-west Antioquia, one of Colombia's heritage towns. Houses with brightly painted wooden balconies surround it, with big trees and a monument to mothers at the centre, and a huge church with two fine spires above. The town goes back to 1860, when the settler Indalecio Peláez took the land during the Antioquian colonisation. The chronicles say the founders saw the valley from above, with its trees and two small streams, and exclaimed that it was a garden, which gave the town its name. Before that it was the land of local peoples, as graves found nearby suggest. You sit in the square on coloured chairs under the trees and watch people pass. The ground is paved with stone, surrounded by doors and windows painted red, blue and yellow. The church, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, watches over it all with its sharp spires. The town has two cable cars, one of them simple, used by farmers and tourists to reach the hills and see the town from above. The town is 77.4 km in a straight line south of Medellín and 134 km according to sources, on a slow mountain road, so it is better to stay a night. Choose morning for a calm square and evening for a lively one. The church is a place of worship, so dress modestly.
Red, blue and yellow around the square.
Two sharp spires above the town.
The town seen from the hills.
Centre of Jardín, Antioquia department
The mountain road is slow, so it is better to stay a night in town.
The chronicles say the founders saw the valley from above and called it a garden.