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Costa Rica’s Central Valley is the gateway to the country. The capital city of San Jose offers a variety of tourist, cultural and natural attractions, among which are the country’s finest museums: the Gold Museum, Jade Museum, National Museum, Museum of Costa Rican Art, La Salle Natural Science Museum, the University of Costa Rica’s Insect Museum, the Art and Contemporary Design Museum and the Children’s Museum, among others. San Jose is also home to the architectural pride of the Costa Rican people, the National Theater. Protecting the Central Valley’s important volcanoes, are the national parks of Poas, Braulio Carrillo, Irazu and Turrialba. Each of the parks is accessible by road, so that visitors may enjoy their birds, landscapes, craters and natural forests.
Most government services are concentrated in the capital city of San Jose. However, the other provincial capitals in the Central Valley, the cities of Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, also have high quality commercial and tourist services. Within the Central Valley there are two regions that stand on their own merit as tourism destinations: Turrialba and the Los Santos Valley. The rural towns in these two regions boast great scenic beauty, and offer a glimpse into the Costa Rica of yesteryear, with bahareque homes (traditional lattice and plaster construction), large coffee estates, sugar cane mills or trapiches, and dairy farms.
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