What is the Villa de Leyva Astronomy Festival?
One weekend a year, usually in March, Villa de Leyva becomes Colombia's astronomy capital. The Festival de Astronomía, held since the late 1990s, is the country's biggest astronomy outreach event: rows of telescopes set up across the Plaza Mayor —one of the largest cobblestone squares in Latin America—, free talks by professional and amateur astronomers, and visitors arriving from all over Colombia with one mission: to look up.
The 2026 edition ran March 20–22, with Spain as the guest country and more than 30 free talks and telescope sessions around the Plaza Mayor. According to press reports, over 6,000 people attended across the three days. Dates for 2027 have not been announced yet; the program is typically confirmed early in the year, so check the official channels of the Alcaldía de Villa de Leyva (the town hall) before locking in travel plans.
What the program usually looks like
The details change from year to year, but the festival's shape is fairly consistent:
- Telescopes in the Plaza Mayor: the festival's signature image. After sunset, lines of telescopes point at the Moon, the planets and deep-sky objects, with volunteers and astronomers guiding the viewing. Access is free.
- Talks and lectures: science communicators, researchers and international guests cover everything from space exploration to astrophotography, in venues open to the public.
- Kids' activities: workshops, water-rocket launches and hands-on science make it a genuinely family-friendly event, not just one for serious hobbyists.
Since exact schedules and venues vary by edition, confirm the current year's official program before building your itinerary.
Why Villa de Leyva is the place for this
It's no accident that Colombia's flagship astronomy festival happens here. Villa de Leyva sits in a semi-desert highland region famous for clear skies through much of the year. Add a small town with very little lighting on its outskirts, and just minutes from the historic center the night gets genuinely dark.
Stargazing here works year-round, not only during the festival — our dedicated guide to stargazing in Villa de Leyva covers what you can see and when. And the daytime program writes itself: El Infiernito (a pre-Columbian Muisca observatory), the fossil museum, Pozos Azules and the Casa Terracota are all close by.
Practical tips
- Book weeks ahead. The festival often lands on or near the San José "puente" — one of Colombia's Monday-holiday long weekends, when domestic travel spikes nationwide. The combination fills the town fast: on dates like these, hotels run above 90% occupancy. If your trip overlaps a puente, our guide to Colombia's long weekends in Villa de Leyva explains how they work.
- Pack for cold nights. Days are mild year-round, but nights are cold — and stargazing means standing still outdoors for hours.
- Verify the official dates. They can shift from year to year; always confirm with the Alcaldía de Villa de Leyva before booking flights or buses.
- Get to the plaza early. Lines for the most powerful telescopes form quickly after sunset.
Getting there
Villa de Leyva is about 3 hours by car from Bogotá (roughly 165 km; buses take closer to 3.5–4 hours). If you're driving, the road is in good shape and parking in town is easy to find. By bus, services leave from Bogotá's Terminal Norte and Terminal Salitre, with fares around COP 40,000–45,000 (verify current prices). On festival weekend it's worth buying your return ticket in advance. Full details are in our getting here guide.
Where to stay: dark skies just outside town
Here's the festival's inconvenient truth: the Plaza Mayor is the worst spot in town for actually seeing stars. Between the street lighting and the event's own lights, the sky over the historic center never reaches the darkness this region is famous for. The plaza telescopes are an experience you shouldn't miss — but the real sky lives outside town.
That's why, for this event in particular, staying in the countryside makes complete sense. El Limonar is a private two-bedroom house on the rural outskirts of Villa de Leyva, 5–10 minutes from the Plaza Mayor: close enough to come and go from the talks and telescope sessions, far enough from the town lights that when you get back, you can keep observing from the garden under a much darker sky. The house runs on solar power — a detail that tends to resonate with the crowd this festival draws — and comes with pet-friendly policies, free parking and fiber WiFi for looking up what you just saw. After a day of talks and a night of stars, there's no better ending than a hot drink in the garden, under the very sky you came for.