The beautiful and tragic city of Medellin

Medellin is a beautiful, vibrant city that belies its tragic history as a violent place. Medellin used to be considered to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world, mostly because of fighting between rival drug cartels, leftist guerilla organizations, right-wing paramilitaries, and local authorities. Caught in the middle were many innocent people including students, academics, and journalists. We learned much about the recent tragic history at the Museo Casa de la Memoria, a museum dedicated to documenting, understanding and honoring the victims of the violence of Medellin and Columbia in general. It is a sobering museum, but reminds you of the importance of history and rememberance. Now Medellin is considered safer than many U.S. and European cities and is a cultural and economic powerhouse of Colombia. In 2013, Medellin was awarded the "Innovative City of the Year" by the Wall Street Journal. There are many new high-rise buildings in addition to historic architecture, efficient mass transit, parks and plazas, many univerisities, museums, and excellent restaurants.

Unfortunately, we were in Medellin only for one full day. Besides visiting the museum Casa de la Memoria, we wandered around Plaza Botero to see the many sculptures donated by Fernando Botero to his hometown, visited the fascinating museum of modern art, and enjoyed an excellent dinner at a restaurant in the neighborhood of Provenza. We also spent time reorganizing to prepare to head home, and decided we needed to head back to Bogota to do laundry, service Hank, and pack. Medellin is certainly a city that we would love to return to.