Parque de Los Pies Descalzos: A Place to Kick Up Your Feet

I usually go to a major park in Medellín for one of three reasons:

1. For exercise in beautiful surroundings, such as a walk through Parque Arví.

2. To learn something, perhaps about art, history, pop culture or all of them, something you can do at Parque Bolívar.

3. For a festival or just a night out to have a few drinks, maybe at Parque Poblado.

Now I have a fourth reason to go to a park: rest and relaxation.

For this last reason there is a great place to go, a place better than all the others. That place is Parque de Los Pies Descalzos.

The name of the place literally translates to Barefoot Park because there are several places to kick off your shoes. Two of them are filled with sand, to give you almost a feeling of being at the beach. The last one is filled with water, a spot to soak your feet, like you’re at — yep, you guessed it — the beach.

There is also a bamboo garden and a grassy area that’s great for a picnic.

The sad thing is, I’ve been living in Medellín for more than two years now and I had never been to Pies Descalzos until recently.

The park is now almost 14 years old, something built by Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM), the company that provides electricity for most paisas. The park is next to the company headquarters.

There are several ways to get there, taxi being the easiest of course.

If you want to use public transportation, I recommend taking the metro to Estación Alpujarra, taking the north exit from the station then following the pedestrian bridge over the street into a small shopping center, before taking another pedestrian bridge over the street on the west side of the little mall.

After walking down the stairs, you can head north to the San Juan, also known as Calle 44, then make a left, walk past the Centro Administrativo La Alpujarra (the government center), cross Carrera 57 then turn to your left and head into the park.

Or you can head south at the bottom of the stairs and make a right at the pedestrian walkway that runs along the south side of the government center until you get to Carrera 57, where there is a pedestrian bridge over the street that allows you to easily cross, before heading north toward the park.

I’ll admit, it’s not the easiest place to get to if you’re not taking a taxi. But Medellín Living wants to help you with that.

Stay tuned for a meet up event on Nov. 9  where we’ll take you there, as well as several other places of interest in the downtown area, before we sit down for some food and drinks and fun conversation.