The area to the west of San José known as Escazú has been an area of deep contrasts for some time. San Miguel and San Rafael de Escazú offer some of the most "modernized" areas of the city. Numerous restaurants line the entrance to the suburb, many of them well familiar sights to U.S. visitors. Multiple cuisines are represented among the offerings—Italian, Mexican, Spanish, French, and Indonesia and residents and visitors alike enjoy the choices. But there are also quite a few eateries that are local success stories in their own right.
In addition to a traditional shopping mall, a little friendly questioning can lead you to some out of the way cafes and restaurants, as well as a myriad of lovely shops, selling both local handicrafts and beautiful items for the home from around the world. Soma of the city’s most interesting art galleries can be found in Escazú, all of which lends a hand in creating the cosmopolitan flare that is so natural to the area. If you choose to make Escazú your base camp in the Central Valley, the lodging choices here are among the best the country has to offer, whether your taste ranges from a country inn, a five star hotel, or an extended stay suites hotel.
Escazu has become the "in" place to live; a very exclusive district that has every amenity you can find. Wonderful Restaurants with all types of food you could search. Malls, where you can find almost everything and you can enjoy an interesting nightlife. A place full of traditions and storytelling people, that is still alive as oral traditions pass for generations.
Located 6 km to the west of San José and known several years ago as the Witches City, offers us a great variety of touristy attractions, as the Restaurants, Cafés, Chocolate stores, nurseries, Hotels, Bars, shopping centers, discotheques and many more. That allows us to choose the best alternative to have a nice time in this lovely place. You can enjoy these places in the mountains that surround the city as much the city itself.
But this sophisticated development is also blended with Escazú's campesino cultural and agricultural traditions. Many of these traditions are hidden in the mountains, so to speak, and it's well worth the effort to search them out. If San Rafael is the commercial vein system of Escazú, San Antonio is its heart. Here is were you can still find the old ways of Costa Rican country life, with ox powered sugar mills ("trapiches") where visitors can watch the production of and taste—freshly pressed cave juice, as well as the "tapa dulce" and "sobado" that are the next stages in the process.
Oxen are still used for both transportation and labor, and it isn't unusual to see saddled horses tied outside of local stores in this area of town. San Antonio de Escazú is where farmers from all over the Central Valley bring their oxen in March for the Día del Boyero, oxcart festival that features a parade of brightly painted carts and a blessing of the animals that bear them. The oral tradition of storytelling is still alive and well in Escazú, in the person of octogenarian Estefana Alfaro Miranda, who has collected the folk tales of the region in a small book, called Los Encantos de la Piedra Blanca.
You can read the book, or you can try to search out Doña Estefana to tell you the story of La Bruja Zárate, the legendary medicine woman and enchantress who protects the mountains of Escazú. Some long time campesino residents swear she can be found above the Rock of Aserri, and that she forms the mist that rolls down the mountains at night. So whether you're looking for a dinner en the town, featuring anything from sushi to "tapas", or an authentic Costa Rican experience, Escazú is the place that can meet your needs.
Geographical Division 
