Sights

Buildings with Spanish facades, patios and arcades, reconstructed buildings and ruins that tell an important part of Guatemala's history, have made La Antigua Guatemala one of the country's foremost tourist centers. It has kept its original character, preserved its monuments, and has kept its original architectural form intact, as a consequence of which, in 1979, UNESCO declared it a Common Heritage of Mankind.

A few mansions of the Colonial period have been restored. Casa Popenone, at 5a. Calle Oriente and la. Avenida Sur, is a fine example of an elegant home. Others include the House of the Bells and the House of Lions. They all feature colonial architecture, with an austere outer wall that encircles a patio with gardens and fountains in the center. The rooms are located around this beautiful and one of a kind patio.

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Cathedral

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Catedral de Santiago
photo by: Jeremy Woodhouse

On the east side of the Plaza de Armas stood the great Catedral, inaugurated on Nov. 5, 1680, after eleven years of construction. This huge building replaced an earlier cathedral begun in 1542 and worked on intermittently for many decades. Various notables from the Conquest were buried here: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, conquistador and author of The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, lived out his latter days in Antigua and was buried in the original cathedral; the remains of the Don Pedro de Alvarado, the conquerer of Guatemala, were brought here in 1568 for re-interment.

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type:	Churches
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El Carmen

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The church of El Carmen, completed in 1728, is the third to occupy this site. The main façade of the church is ornate baroque, and unique in Antigua with its triple pairs of columns set on podia projecting forward from the main wall in place of the niches and saints usually occurring here on Antigua's churches. Adjoining the church in the space now occupied by the red-painted private home were the conventual buildings. It was here that the Capuchin nuns were first housed upon their arrival in Antigua in 1726, prior to the building of Las Capuchinas. Today none of the convent more..

type:	Churches
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Capucin Convent

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One of the most fascinating colonial sites in Antigua is Las Capuchinas, the Capuchin Convent, completed in 1736 under the direction of the chief architect of the city, Diego de Porres. Today the convent is partially intact and partially in ruins. The intact portions house a museum and offices for the National Council for the Protection of Antigua Guatemala. The ruined sections include baths for the nuns, and an unusual circular area containing novices cells, each complete with it own privy. Below this circular patio is a mysterious, subterranean chamber that resonates more..

type:	Churches
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Santa Clara

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Another very special ruin is that of the convent of Santa Clara founded in 1699 by the arrival of five nuns and one legate from Mexico. The convent's first church was completed in 1705, but destroyed in 1717. The remains standing today are those of a new church and convent started in 1723 and finished in 1734. The ruined nave and altar were constructed over gloomy subterranean vaults that are best explored with a flashlight. A complex of corridors and stairwells gives access to various parts of the shadowy ruin. But the greatest beauty of Santa Clara is its ruined cloister, more..

type:	Churches
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