José Antonio Páez — llanero horseman, hero of the cavalry charge at Carabobo, and first president of an independent Venezuela — kept this modest townhouse a few blocks from Plaza Bolívar as his official residence in Valencia. The single-storey building with a long shaded patio is a typical example of nineteenth-century criollo domestic architecture in the central llanos.
Inside, the rooms are arranged as a small museum of the Páez era: campaign portraits and equestrian engravings line the walls, his sabre and uniform are on display, and a series of murals painted in the second half of the nineteenth century narrates the major battles of the independence war. Entry is cheap and the visit short. Pair with the Capitolio next door and the cathedral on the plaza for a single morning's tour of independence-era Valencia.