San José (from above and airport)

- San José, Juan Santamaria Airport, Flight San José-San Salvador

Population: 334 000 (metro 2.1 million)
Year: 2016
Founded: 1739
Capital: 1823
Elevation: 1172m

San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica. It is one of the safest cities in Central America. The city is known for its colourful colonial buildings and also has a few highrises around the city. Theatres, sculptures and museums can all be found in the city. Costa Rica is known as a small country with no army, but with beautiful beaches and mountains. You can read more about San José, Costa Rica here.

We only visited San José's Juan Santamaría Airport, and not the city itself, to switch planes as we were heading to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, from Copenhagen. But as the plane took off we were able to see the city from above. The special thrill when taking off from this airport, is that the plane has to fly above a mountain before it can proceed, so suddenly the ground is closer. We went by an Iberia flight to Costa Rica, an Airbus A340 (the second largest after the Dreamliner) and left with an Avianca flight.
When we landed it was raining and the sky was grey. When we took off it was somewhat clearer. Juan Santamaria Airport is situated in Alajuela, 23 km west of downtown and is quite small and nice (the staff was really friendly), but still one of the busiest airports in Central America, with over 4 million passengers a year.