Fun Walks To Take in the Poblado District

TLDR? The hills in Poblado are a great place for quiet walks in Medellin!

Partially due to its fantastic climate, there’s rarely a day in Medellin that goes by that doesn’t offer some opportunity to take a walk around town. You can soak in some of the natural beauty that’s both within and without the metropolitan area.

Poblado is one of two neighborhoods in Medellin that holds the distinction of being where most foreigners spend their time when they come to visit the city. The other is Laureles, whose walking guide you can find in this part of the blog.

Apart from this, locals also love these neighborhoods for their fantastic and diverse dining scenes. Not to mention their killer nightlives, which I feel can go toe-to-toe with anywhere.

If you’re planning on visiting either of these two neighborhoods, here’s a quick guide that I whipped up to give you some ideas for some neat walks. These are ones you can take evening, afternoon or morning.

Poblado: Gateway to The Mountains

Gateway to The Mountains

As anyone who has spent significant amounts of time in Poblado will tell you, this cosmopolitan neighborhood is quite hilly.

The hills can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on your attitude. Or, depending on whether you’ve been hitting some of the fantastic bars in the neighborhood, your state of mind.

The reason that Poblado is so hilly is that it’s nestled into the bosom of the beautiful mountains that surround the city.

This is fantastic news for the itinerant walker, but you have to work for it. Let’s take a look at a couple of ideas for you to start with.

Take To the Hills

Take To the Hills

If you’re willing to break a sweat and are starting from the center of Poblado, in my opinion, you can’t go wrong with taking a trek up one of Poblado’s central boulevards. These reach up into the hilly winding roads and beyond.

The roads and paths are almost a labyrinthine network that separates and conjoins in an interesting rhythm. It means that you might leave one street, take a side road, and end up on the same boulevard you started on.

This makes for a relaxing and almost hypnotic experience where you can space out and end up in some of the city’s more beautiful and luxurious parts.

Despite the winding nature of many of these roads, you can usually depend on them to deliver some amazing views. You can catch vistas of the valley below you, as well as the other mountain ranges in the area.

Some of the luxury properties in the area offer views almost as impressive as the natural ones. Many of them are bedecked in sculptures, interesting architectural ideas, and progressive landscape design.

As strange as this might sound, one particularly cool walk that I went on included climbing up the winding roads to get to the El Tesoro mall. It’s almost at the crest of where the end of the development and the more rugged wilderness begins.

The mall serves well as an arbitrary destination. It also has a massive outdoor veranda area that offers a truly spectacular view of the valley below.

If you’re feeling a bit winded after your trek up the steep roads, you can also stop at the cinema for a movie and some air conditioning!

Parque Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Parque Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Another one of my Poblado picks would have to be taking a stroll over to Parque Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Parque Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a beautiful newly developed area in Poblado. I feel like it points to some of the ways that public space in Medellin might develop in the future.

This walk has a bonus that one might want to take into consideration in contrast with the last walk that I recommended. If you’re coming from what could be considered “downtown” Poblado, getting to this park is entirely a downhill walk! That is until it’s time to turn around and head back up the hill.

If you make it down to the park, you’ll find yourself not too far from a couple of other attractions in the area. This includes the must-go MAMM museum, which houses some of Medellin’s most interesting modern art exhibits.

Take A Stroll Through the Parque de La Presidenta

Parque de La Presidenta

The Parque de La Presidenta is a winding little gulley that hugs the creek that runs through the center of the Poblado neighborhood. This is a cool walk because it brings you through a nice interplay between the urban and natural areas of the neighborhood.

This interplay between nature and development is one of the aesthetic features of the neighborhood. It’s part of what makes the Poblado area so dynamic.

I would have to say that this sentiment applies to the city of Medellin itself. It has a forward-thinking architecture that is often composed of the natural environment that surrounds it. This makes for some very interesting and beautiful juxtapositions between man-made developments and nature.

Strolling through the park will bring you both forested glens and natural areas. It will also bring you through some of the more wild party areas of the neighborhood.

So if you find yourself having downed one too many shots partying at Vintrash or Perro Negro, then now you’ll know the pretty way back to wherever you might be lodging!

And indeed, once you know about this park, it can act as a green super highway. It’s one that connects you to the various sub-sections of the central Poblado neighborhood.

If you’re visiting during the daytime, there are a bunch of places to sit. Plus, there are some play areas for kids if you’re visiting with your family.

Scratching The Surface of Poblado’s Walking Potential

Poblado offers some of the richest views of the Medellin valley and some of the richest cultural explorations you can undertake as you snoop around the city.

This fascinating interplay between civilization and the natural is what makes the area one of the most entertaining in the city.

If you’re spending a good amount of time in Poblado, or even end up becoming a more long-term resident, you’re doubtless to find more areas to add to this subject. So, pay attention to the bottom of this post for the tagline if you find something to contribute!

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