14 Best Sights in Tegucigalpa, Tegucigalpa

The capital's gleaming cathedral presides over the eastern edge of Plaza Morazán and is named for the city's patron saint, the archangel Michael. The domed structure, flanked by towering palms, has stood on this site since 1765. Earth tremors and rain took their toll on the edifice through the centuries, but after a five-year, $500,000 restoration, completed in 2009, the cathedral is fabulous once again. For decades, the building's exterior was painstakingly whitewashed each year; the restoration project returned the cathedral to its original salmon color. Sunlight streams into the apse, where you'll find the glittering gold-and-silver altar sculpted by Guatemalan artist Vicente Galvéz. Mass is held regularly in the cathedral, as are occasional chamber-music concerts. The Plaza Morazán was recently renovated and rebuilt with attractive open-air seating.

This might be the world's only museum that teaches you about the hows and whys of flatulence, complete with sound effects. Appropriately, it comes at the, um, tail end of your walk through a giant gastrointestinal tract. If that doesn't satisfy your appetite for the offbeat, you can learn about vomiting, sneezing, and body odor, too. It's all part of the immensely popular El Cuerpo Humano (Human Body) section of Tegucigalpa's fun, interactive new children's museum, which plenty of adults enjoy, too. Other exhibits acquaint kids with conservation of the environment and skills of commerce. Displays are all labeled in Spanish, but the friendly museum staff can help you if your abilities in that language are weak or nonexistent. As you'd expect, weekends are mobbed here. A visit during the week lets you take in the activities in relative peace and quiet. Just look for the blue-and-purple building on the hill down the road from Las Cascadas shopping mall. Chiminike, by the way, is the name of a frog in a popular Honduran children's story.

Standing guard over the city, this monumental statue of Christ has been a landmark since it was erected in 1997. On the same hill is an ancient Coca-Cola sign, constructed with individual white letters using the same idea as Southern California's famous "hollywood" sign. It is visible from many places throughout the city, and its proximity has led irreverent residents to dub the Cristo statue "the Coca-Cola Christ." From here there's a beautiful view of the valley. It all sits in the Parque de las Naciones Unidas, a great place to have a picnic, although it can be crowded with locals on weekends. A small zoo in the park has seen better days. A taxi is the easiest way to get up here. Expect to pay L100 from downtown.

Housed in the 1694 Convento de San Pedro Nolasco and adjoining the Iglesia de la Merced, the bright and airy National Gallery of Art displays some wonderful artifacts, including finely detailed pre-Columbian ceramics and intricate Mayan sculptures from Copán. The museum has a dozen exhibition halls holding lovely examples of religious and colonial art; these serious works contrast nicely with the more comic modern works on the patio. Upstairs you'll find paintings by Pablo Zelaya Sierra and other 20th-century Honduran artists. The building has had many uses through the centuries, including as an army barracks and a cockfighting arena. To our minds, the building's current incarnation is its best so far; though small, this is one of Latin America's top art museums. As a bonus, this is one of the few such facilities in the country to present information in both Spanish and English.

Two retablos, or small religious paintings, flank the attractive altarpiece housed inside this 17th-century church. It's adjacent to the Galería Nacional de Arte.

Three blocks east of Plaza Morazán lies the first church built in Tegucigalpa. Construction on the building, which sits on a leafy little square called Parque Valle, began in 1592. Inside this Franciscan church are a guilded altar and colonial religious paintings.

This towered church dating from 1732 is dedicated to human sorrow, earning it a special place in the hearts of poverty-stricken Hondureños. On the facade—it's the most ornate of any church in the city—you'll see carvings representing the last days of Christ, including the cock that crowed three times to signal that Christ had been betrayed. Although the building keeps official opening hours, unofficially it is frequently closed during the week. If you can get inside, the interior, dominated by a colorful dome, features paintings of the Crucifixion. The church is known to be the nexus of a system of colonial-era tunnels, none of which are open to the public any longer. One leads to the cathedral, six blocks away; others were secret routes to private homes. Local lore holds that the tunnels: a) contain colonial gold worth millions of lempiras; b) served as secret escape routes used by scallywag government officials; c) are haunted; or d) are any combination of the above. The church faces a lively square filled with stalls selling inexpensive goods.

This hillside mansion near Plaza La Concordia, once home to President Julio Lozano who was ousted in a 1956 military coup, houses the National Museum of History and Anthropology. (Despite the name, the focus is entirely on history here.) For those who read Spanish, there is some quirky information on the republic's struggles after it gained its independence, but the information gets extremely detailed—likely more than you need unless you are a student of Honduran history.

The Museum of National Identity is a recent addition to the pantheon of downtown galleries and museums, and has established itself as one of Tegucigalpa's most rewarding attractions. A 19th-century building that served first as a hospital and then as the government's Palace of Ministries has been converted into the country's foremost museum of history—and the results are impressive. The second-floor installations take you through everything that has happened in Honduras from its geological formation up to the present day. (That includes not shying away from the 2009 political crisis.) A film entitled Copán Virtual is presented several times a day and guides you through the Mayan city's construction. It's a good introduction to Copán if you're headed that way, and is included in your admission price. The first floor contains temporary exhibits. Everything is labeled in Spanish here, but for an extra L50 you can rent a portable audio unit that gives you commentary in English about what you're seeing. Although the concept of the museum gift shop hasn't really caught on in Honduras, this facility is an exception. Stop by the small shop on your way out and browse the selection of candles and leather goods made by an area women's cooperative. Admission is free on Thursday to school groups, and they come en masse; if your schedule permits, another day of the week is more peaceful.

A 20-minute walk north of Plaza Morazán, up some steep and twisting cobbled streets, will bring you to this charming park that is well worth the effort to get here. Lovely views of Tegucigalpa are even nicer at night, and locals say the winking lights look like a nativity display. Many of the older houses in this beautiful, but somewhat dishevelled, neighborhood once belonged to European settlers.

A few blocks south of Plaza Morazán, this small park provides weary travelers with some shady places to sit. Older men in wide-brimmed hats tend to perch here, making the most of the relative calm to read their newspapers and gossip. The park is the site of a 19th-century university; today its auditorium houses art exhibits and is a music-performance venue.

You might not realize it as a bus chugs by belching a cloud of smoke, but Tegucigalpa really is putting forth an effort toward making itself a more pleasant place to live and visit. One of its little gems—it's a work in progress at this writing—is the five-block-long downtown pedestrian mall between the Teatro Nacional Manuel Bonilla and Plaza Morazán. The unusual moniker "Liquidámbar" comes from the genus name for the American sweetgum tree, grown throughout Honduras; locals, however, simply refer to the promenade as the Calle Peatonal (pedestrian street). Bricked pavement, modern iron street lamps, new benches, and tiled colonial-style street signs make Liquidámbar a pleasant place for a stroll. You'll find a few U.S. fast-food places here as well as the ubiquitous Espresso Americano, Honduras's answer to Starbucks. Stores are geared toward local shopping needs rather than much tourist interest. The Champs-Elysées it is not, but we credit the city for creating a pleasant public space for residents and visitors alike.

Crowded night and day, the city's central park—folks here frequently refer to the public space as the Parque Central—is where everyone comes to chat with friends, purchase lottery tickets, have their shoes polished, and listen to free afternoon concerts. As it was recently refurbished with new benches and outdoor seating, you'll want to sit here for a while to admire the cathedral's facade and watch the pigeons playing peekaboo near the equestrian statue of Francisco Morazán, born in Tegucigalpa and president of the Central American Federation in the 1830s, which included Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. On the topic of those pigeons, they seem to have amazingly accurate aim. Watch where you sit.

The National Theater, built in 1915 and named after the early-20th century president who advocated for its construction, has an ornate interior that was modeled after the Athenée in Paris. Check the schedule for events that range from classical-ballet performances to rock concerts.