Antigua Guatemala audiotours

Three volcanoes ring the valley where Antigua sits: Agua to the south, Fuego to the west (still actively erupting), and Acatenango between them. The Spanish established their colonial capital here in 1543, and for 230 years Antigua was one of the most important cities in the Americas, home to grand churches, convents, a university, and administrative buildings constructed in a Spanish baroque style that adapted itself to frequent seismic shocks with lower walls and heavier buttresses. The 1773 Santa Marta earthquakes finally convinced the colonial authorities to move the capital to what is now Guatemala City.

They left behind something rare: a colonial city largely intact in its bones, with most of the abandoned churches and convents preserved as ruins rather than demolished for stone.

La Merced church keeps its ornate white and yellow facade. The Convent of Las Capuchinas has a circular tower whose function has never been conclusively explained. The Cathedral of San Jose stands partly ruined at the east end of the central park, its nave open to the sky, bougainvillea growing over the broken columns. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1979.