A single-storey colonial house two blocks south of Plaza Bolívar, restored in the 1920s to the layout it would have had when Simón Bolívar was born here in 1783. The rooms open onto two interior patios — the standard plan of a wealthy mantuano family of the period — and contain period furniture, military uniforms, and family portraits. Frescoes by Tito Salas, painted in the 1920s, depict scenes from the wars of independence.
Next door, the Museo Bolivariano holds the more substantial collection: Bolívar's pistols and sabres, manuscript letters, the bed he died in (transported from Santa Marta, Colombia, in the nineteenth century), and the casket that carried his remains back to Venezuela in 1842. Both museums are state-run, free or near-free, and best seen together. An hour is enough.