The Paseo Orinoco is Ciudad Bolívar's defining street — a long curving promenade above the south bank of the Orinoco, lined with low colonial buildings and the modest river-trade architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The river here is roughly 1.5 kilometres across; you stand on a high embankment and watch the brown current move past at remarkable speed. At dusk, locals walk the length of the Paseo and the open-air restaurants set up tables on the embankment.
Most of Ciudad Bolívar's points of interest cluster within a five-minute walk of the Paseo: the cathedral and the Plaza Bolívar are just inland, and the Casa del Correo del Orinoco — where Simón Bolívar printed his revolutionary newspaper — sits at the eastern end. Walking the Paseo in daylight is safe and pleasant; after dark, take a taxi or stick to lit areas.