Located to the northeast of San Jose in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, lays the picturesque farming town of Grecia and its neighbor city of Sarchi. The area offers a fantastic climate, fresh and breezy, being cool most of the year. Either Grecia with its unique metal church and friendly “tico” community or the town of Sarchi know to be the cradle of Costa Rican handcrafts, are great destinations for visitors to coordinate a firsthand experience of Costa Rica culture.

The area is home to Bosque de Paz Rain/Cloud forest which is a great location for bird watching and wildlife observation, all encompassed with orchid gardens. Visitors should not miss the opportunity to visit Sarchi oxcart factory where the famous painted oxcart is still made using the traditional methods.

Highlights

Sarchi
Known as the main artisan´s town in Costa Rica, Sarchi town is where the famous painted oxcart are still made using traditional methods.  Oxcarts such as these were once used in Costa Rica to haul coffee beans to market and although you might occasionally see oxcarts in use during your trip, most of them are purely decorative and remain a well known symbol of Costa Rica. A visit to Sarchi may allow visitors to find in Sarchi many carved wooden souvenirs from rare hardwoods. Even though there are dozens of small shops in town your best one-stop is the large Chaverri Oxcart Factory.  Other highlights in town include the main church built between 1950 and 1958. The church is painted pink with aquamarine trim and looks strangely like a child´s birthday cake. Also, make sure to visit Else Kientzler Botanical Garden which features a huge collection of plants, flowers and trees.

Grecia Church
Known as the Metal Church, the cathedral “Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes” is located in the town of Grecia in Costa Rica.  Made entirely out of pre-fabricated steel plates painted in red, this unique gothic style church was built in Belgium and brought to Costa Rica back in 1897.  According to an urban legend the church was donated and sent to Greece as a gift, but was wrongly shipped to “Grecia” in Costa Rica. However, the real story is that parishioner’s decided to order a metal church in conjunction with the Catholic Church and the costarican government  after two previous church’s were destroyed one by an earthquake and another due to a fire.  The church is impressive from the inside as it is from the outside.