The Cathedral, Cusco

La Catedral is on the beautiful Plaza de Armas. I was walking around the first night before dinner and took a few pictures. As are many of the Spanish sights, it was built on a much older Incan site (palace of the Inca Viracocha) which was destroyed and replaced. Even though it is being restored right now, there is much to see inside. It was the second stop on the Cusco half day tour the next day.

Cathedral, at Plaza de Armas, was damaged during earthquakes; when I visited it (2000), it was being repaired. Its construction lasted 94 years; it is decorated with awesome cedar carving; the main altar is made of silver. The Cathedral has a painting museum, where there is a curious "Last Supper" paintig with local dishes.

La Catedral, en la Plaza de Armas, fue severamente dañada durante varios terremotos; cuando la visité en el año 2000, estaba siendo reparada. Su construcción tardó 94 años; está decorada con impresionantes tallas en madera de cedro; el altar principal es de plata. La Catedral tiene un Museo pictórico, en el cual hay una curiosa versión de "La Última Cena", en donde figuran platos locales.

the church,first built,in 1560.
on the viracocha's palace site,called quishuarcancha....

all these facts to show you the fury and the will of the conquistadores for deleting inca memories and historical associations.

The centerpiece of the Plaza de Armas, La Catedral is the city's main church and took over a 100 years to build, dating back to 1559.
The interior is equally impressive and houses great colonial art works including the famous Last Supper, with a guinea pig as the main course. This can be visited on the Boleto Touristico, a ticket that gets you into all of Cusco's main attractions for around ten dollars.

The Cathedral was built over one of the most important Inca temples built in honor of the God Wiracocha; unlike Qoricancha, here the conquistadores did not keep the Inca foundations. This construction lasted more than a century.

Here you find a great artistic treasure, with paintings of great painters such as Marcos Zapata, Rafael de Urbina and Melchor Huamán,as well as a great variety of styles:Baroque, Rococo, Churrigeresco, etc.

The first site I visited was the Cathedral, which lies on one side of Plaza de Armas. It is huge and majestic. It has two beautiful chapels on its sides with gold and silver covered altars. The main building was being restored, yet I got an eerie reminder of the Cathedrals in Spain (specially the one in Madrid) when I got a peak of its interior. It makes sense of course since the Spaniards built it :).

The Cusco Cathedral was built in 1550 in the Baroque Style, right on the foundations of the palace of Inca Wirachocha. A really nice place to visit in Cuzco and its located in the Plaza Mayor.