Sucre, the official capital of Bolivia, is an absolute beauty. We fell in love with this city. In fact it is one of the most impressive and beautiful bigger cities/capitals we have visited in Latin America.
The city center of Sucre is quite big. The whole inner circle of the city is a historical center, filled with colonial buildings, beautiful churches, interesting museums, cute cafe’s and bars. There are also many quality restaurants. Besides the market being one of the best places to grab lunch, we recommend the Condor Café to all vegetarians (creative vegetarian lunch menu for under 3€).
Apparently Sucre is also the place where many backpackers and tourists choose to stay for participating in a language class. From what we heard, the Spanish schools are very good and affordable in Sucre. If you are in need of refreshing your Spanish skills, this seems to be the place, as Bolivians speak fairly slow and clear Spanish in comparison to other Latin countries.
Due to it’s beauty and the many things you can also explore outside the city you can easily stay up to a week in Sucre and it’s region. There are beautiful mountains and even volcanos that are worth visiting. Most people do the Maragua crater on a one day excursion via a tour operator, we tried to do it without, but got unlucky…on the day we tried to go there, the public bus drivers refused to drive us to the park entry, because there was a protest happening in that region….
A trip you can definitely do without a tour is visiting the artisanal market of Tarabuco, which is located a 1 and a half hours bus drive from Sucre. It is a nice market, where you can buy beautiful artisanal products, very similar to the ones you find in Peru, for less.