Entretenimiento

San José has a variety of cultural activities, museums and theaters, opened most days of the week and throughout the year.

"El Teatro Nacional" (The National Theater) and "El Teatro Melico Salazar" (The Melico Salazar Theater), host concerts and ballet all year.  "El Teatro Nacional", first built in the 1890's, inspired by the The Opera of Paris, is probably one of the few architectural treasures that we have.  "El Teatro Melico Salazar" is a neoclassic building which, 20 years ago, was one of the first great cinemas called "El Teatro Raventos".  This theater was later named after Melico Salazar, a Costa Rican world famous tenor who even sang at the Metropolitan Opera House of New York.  It has a pleasant European coffee bar with large windows from where you can acquaint yourself with the busy downtown streets.

San José has many small theaters where comedy is the order of the day, mostly about Costa Rican culture.  However, a good command of the Spanish language will be needed to truly enjoy this humor.

For theater in English, The Little Theather Group, offers two to three comedies per year. Their monthly agenda can be found in the newspaper "La Nación" in Spanish or "The Tico Times" in English.

The museums that you cannot miss in San José are "El Museo Nacional" (the National Museum), located in the Bellavista Fort established in 1887, where the nature and cultural history of Costa Rica is documented.  Heading west, towards the "El Teatro Nacional", in downtown San José, is "El Museo de Oro" (The Gold Museum), an underground museum in which you can appreciate a stunning pre-Columbian gold collection. And in eleventh floor of "El Instituto Nacional de Seguros"  (National Institute of Insurances) is " El Museo de Jade"  (the Jade Museum), where they exhibit remarkable pieces of jade that show a very significant stage on the development of  pre-Columbian civilizations of Costa Rica.