Colonia Tovar

Taking advantage of a recent business trip to Caracas, I took one day off to venture to Colonia Tovar, one of the best tourist sites.

Driving westward from the capital city, we wound through 63 km of serpentine mountain roads. Finally, we arrived at one of the most charming places in Venezuela, Colona Tovar, situated in the Cordillera de la Costa, Aragua State north [source: intenet]. This quaint town, unparalleled and unexpected in beauty and individuality, lent to the otherwise strict Latin American culture a taste of the Black Forest region of south-western Germany.

After a sumptious meal, washed down with a can of German beer, we strolled along the steep streets, touched by cool mountian breezes.

Below is a little bit of history of the town Colonia Tovar:

In fact, the first settlers came to our country, organized and settled in these beautiful mountains in 1843, from the Black Forest villages such as Wyhl, Oberbergen Edingen and Kaiserstuhl. For many years, were isolated from the rest of the country, so that subsequent generations were able to retain many of their ancestral traditions and their language, the Badischer (dialect from Baden), meals, clothing, dancing . At present, all descendants of such valiant pioneers speak Spanish and are fully incorporated into national reality [source: internet].