Colonial Quito, Quito

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Just off the western corner of Plaza Grande is Centro Cultural Metropolitano situated. It is housed in a beautiful restored colonial building which was a Jesuit school between 1597 and 1767, and later it was used as army barracks. At Centro Cultural Metropolitano there are usually temporary exhibitions on display. When I visited they were setting up a photo exhibition at one of the inner courtyards with photos from Machu Picchu. You can also walk around quite freely, just admiring the architecture.
In the building you can also visit Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño, but I didn’t.

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The whitewashed Quito Cathedral is situated on the southwest side of Plaza Grande. First I thought the cathedral was closed, but then I found out there is an entrance from Venezuela, and there you pay an admission of $1.50 (June 2011).

Quito Cathedral was built already in 1563, but has been restored a few times after being damaged by earthquakes. Inside you will find several paintings made by artists of the old Quito School. An interesting painting is the Last Supper where Christ and the Disciples have got cuy, humitas an chicha on the table in front of them. First I couldn’t find the Last Supper, but it is situated high up on the wall on the right side of the altar. In the cathedral you will also find the tomb of Mariscal Sucre, one of Ecuador’s heroes of independence. The Ecuadorian president Gabriel García Moreno died 1875 in the cathedral after he had been attacked with a machete outside the cathedral. Behind the altar there is a plaque indicating the place where he died.

When I visited there was a children choir practising and that was very nice listening to when I walked around in the church.

The cathedral is open for visits on Mondays - Fridays between 9.30 - 16.00 and on Saturdays between 10.00 - 16.00.

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The Archbishop’s Palace is one of the oldest buildings in Quito, but it has been rebuilt and restored several times. It is a two-story building with whitewashed walls and balconies. It is built in a neoclassical style and has a colonnaded passage facing Plaza Grande and several inner courtyards.

Inside the Archbishop’s Palace, around one of the courtyards, you will find many restaurants, serving both fast food and more expensive food. There are also souvenir shops and Internet places in the building.

On the other corner of the crossing of Garcia Moreno and Sucre, there is the Museo Numismatico (museum of the history of the coins).

The building is the Central Bank of Ecuador.
I am not sure if it is still used as a bank, as we had no time to enter this building.

But it is a great building, certainly worth to stop and to admire the great architecture.

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San Agustín is another of Quito’s Baroque Colonial churches, but like La Compañía it has an elaborate façade, replete with intricate carvings that are mirrored by a rich and decorative interior. Tucked into one of the streets leading from the bus terminal to the Plaza Grande, this church is not likely to be on your immediate itinerary, but you are likely to pass it on the way up the hill. On Sundays, the entrance to the church is a popular spot for street vendors to sell religious images, rosaries, candles and other religious paraphernalia, which adds to the ambiance of the area. It marks part of the “trilogy” of orders in the city: after San Francisco and Santo Domingo, San Agustín helps to round out the representation in the city of the three big monastic orders (Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustines). Nevertheless, you shouldn’t expect to see any monks hanging around this church, as it appears to have become overcome by the touristy feeling of the surrounding streets.

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El Convento La Merced is another of Quito’s architectural prizes, although it is a bit outside of the main Plaza Grande strip. Located at Chile and Sebastian de Benalcazar (some say Imbambura?), this massive church and convent features a mixture of Baroque and Moorish influences, the favoured styles of the builders of the original Colonial city. It is a massive structure, covering 29000 square metres, although a large part of that is devoted to the convent and not the church. The large cupola is also remarkable, although it is likely the Baroque campanile that will draw your attention. I didn’t have the opportunity to visit the interior of the church, but the pictures I have seen show a beautiful, gilded Baroque altar and interior, with numerous statues by reputed religious artists. The Church was originally constructed in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the majority of the Colonial religious institutions were erected in the city. It dominates the small streets of this part of the colonial town, making it seem almost like an impossibly large structure among the otherwise low residential and commercial buildings.

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La Ronda is a rehabilitated section of Quito’s old city that is part of the municipality’s drive to turn Quito into a tourist destination to rival other Latin American metropolises. The area is a short, 15 minute walk from Plaza Grande and, although there are no spectacular architectural gems here, it does offer visitors with a cleaned-up and slightly yuppy version of the Colonial Centre. The white-washed houses in Colonial style are all prim and proper, the vast majority of them housing boutiques, restaurants and lounges designed to pry a few extra dollars from tourists with a taste for a unique cultural experience. There are also plenty of explanations as to how this part of the city played an important role in the development of Ecuadorian music, which is interesting but a bit mystifying for anyone who doesn’t know about the music scene here to begin with. An interesting point to note is that the original Panama hat store is in La Ronda. Panama hats are actually made in Ecuador, and you can find original and high-quality ones for sale on La Ronda (but don’t expect them to be cheap!).

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The Teatro Nacional Sucre, located near but not directly in the Historic Centre of Quito (it’s actually in a part of the city called San Blas) is of the typical Spanish Colonial and neo-Classical style that is so characteristic of many of the city’s buildings. It is still a functional theatre where regular performances are put on, and you will likely have to buy tickets to a show in order to be able to see the inside. The exterior, however, is also quite beautiful, and there is not shortage of photo opportunities, especially given the image of the Mariscal Sucre on the outside of the structure. It was designed by Francisco Schmidt, a German architect who was the author of numerous works in the city during the 1920s.