Nicknamed “the city of eternal spring” thanks to its temperate year-round climate, Medellín has been turned around from the bad old days of narco lords and crime by many things and years of painstaking effort, of course. But one major factor was a huge investment in infrastructure, from cultural institutions like Parque Explora science museum/aquarium (opened in 2008) parks and the development development/promotion of festivals like August’s Flower Festival and a jolly Christmastime display of lights. It’s a complex plan of urban renewal that has become a model for urban areas across the globe (in 2016, for example, it won the biennial Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, beating out almost 40 other cities from around the world). But perhaps most important of all for locals on a day-to-day basis, a robust public transportation system which has benefited both medellinenses in central areas but also resulted in the integration of various areas of the city which were once difficult to reach, and therefore especially prone to... keep reading