Colombia’s second largest city has a ‘Parque’ for nearly every social class. If you need to get away from the harshness of the central Parque Bolivar or it’s opposite; the elitist bars around Parque Lleras, you should find your way to Parque del Poblado. It’s the heart of the middle class area of Medellín and almost as squeaky clean as the city’s metro. It may actually remind you of home.
Parque del Poblado during the day has little to offer. There’s shops on Calle 10 and some nice antique shops around, but the whole Poblado neighborhood simply is too vast to go shopping. your shoe soles would be worn out before you could buy new ones.
Better to visit the square at night when dozens of youth from the hills above and the valley below visit the square and the surrounding bars. Even better to visit on a weekend night when hundreds of youth come together.
There’s some nice Colombian style cafe’s at the bottom of the square where you can listen to horrible vallenato or, when you know to find the door to the terrace pub on the lower left corner, pretty cool reggae.
If you prefer rock you need to walk one and a half block to Bar Berlin. It’s overprized, can be full of snobby Poblado locals and sometimes you wish the waitresses would get sacked for being so arrogant, but it’s actually quite a nice place to sit and talk and forget you’re in Colombia.
Bar Berlin is on Calle 10 where you’ll find other bars and nightclubs, some with reggaeton, some with rock, some with salsa. None are really spectacular and all are a lot more expensive than going out anywhere outside Poblado, but you will meet people that speak English, you will even meet pretty boys and pretty girls that speak English and you will hardly remember what country you exactly you’re in.