Parque de los Pies Descalzos

A park where you walk barefoot, and it means it.

It is called the Barefoot Park and that is not an exaggeration: there are areas of sand, of water and of bamboo precisely so that you take your shoes off and walk on them. In the middle of the city, in the part called La Alpujarra, between government offices and the convention centre. It was designed by the architect Felipe Uribe de Bedout around the turn of the millennium and it is a zen garden rewritten into Colombian.

Above it all stands an enormous glass building with water running around it.

It is the headquarters of EPM, the city's energy and water company. It opened in 1997, has a hundred and twenty four thousand square metres, and the architects took inspiration from the Lloyd's building in London, which shows: the services are pulled out into towers along the sides instead of being hidden inside. All around it are pools and fountains.

That combination is what makes the place. Glass, water, bamboo, sand, the hills of Medellín around it and above it a sky that changes here every half hour. Skaters come because the flat surfaces invite it. And after dark the whole thing lights up and it is one of the nicest places in the city.

On Sundays there is a market

I happened on the farmers market that spreads out right next to it.

White tents in a row, and under them fruit, vegetables, cheeses, bread, flowers. Colombian markets are not a museum for visitors, they are how people do their shopping, and it shows: neighbours come with dogs and bags, not with cameras.

I had an empanada with pulled chicken there, straight from the stall and hot. If you go, have one too.

Farmers markets in Medellín move around the parks on Saturdays and Sundays, roughly from eight to one. Which park and when changes, so check before you go. Until one in the afternoon, not later: turn up at two and you will find empty tents.