Trips to Ecuador

CONVENT OF SANTO DOMINGO
The severe geography of Quito is expressed in a concave place in Santo Domingo. There, the tower of the clock gave the welcome to the travellers who arrived at Quito by the south in past centuries. Along with San Francisco and the Great Place, the place of Santo Domingo is another important public scene of the city. In 1990, for example, the indigenous rise culminated its impressive march by the country with the symbolic taking of the church, a political fact of enormous importance for Ecuador. Already in the festive plane, Santo Domingo is where every December is made pregón of celebrations of the city, with thousands of people enjoying music and art to celebrate to Quito. In the South corner of the place it is the church like a challenge for the good observer to be full of charming details: of the ceilings to the altarpieces, the painting mural to the gold bread, of the Mudejar scenery to linen cloths… And as it shows of the meticulous work that locks up east temple, the work of restoration carried out by the Bottom of Rescue of the city (FONSAL) disassembled eleven thousand pieces that compose the caissoned ceiling (or inner decoration) of the ceiling of the central ship, and so the category was ratified of which this it is the greatest and complete caissoned ceiling of Latin America.

This colorful temple contains tracks of the artistic work of several centuries, because the Dominican ones were the third community of friars in arriving at Quito, century XVI and was remodelada in the XIX by management of Dominican Italian. The most outstanding space of the temple is the exquisite Chapel of the Rosary, a sample barroca in red and gold constructed in century XVIII on the arc that it gives to the outside of the temple and recovered does few years. Also recently one completed the restoration of the Chapels of the Santísimo and the Chapel of the Confession, to the right of the greater altar.

Inside the convent of Santo Domingo, the Museum of Colonial Art Fray Pedro Bedón exhibits valuable pieces of the Quito School, one of the most important artistic currents of America during the Colony. Fray Pedro Bedón was a Dominican monk with artistic vocation that lived in Quito in the century XVI and that the Brotherhood of the Virgin of the Rosary, a citizen group responsible for the creation of many of the spaces organized and pieces of the Santo Domingo set.

THE CONVENT OF THE HIGH CARMEN
In century XVII, this convent was a family home where Mariana grew Walls, a pious Quito woman who even dedicated her life to the oration and the sacrifice, arriving to inflingir corporal punishments to consecrate her soul and its body to God. This woman who soon would be canonized like Santa Mariana de Jesus, first santa of Quito, predicted that its house would be home of the order of Carmelite the Barefoot ones, prediction that became reality. The convent of the High Carmen is a closing convent where the nuns look for to emulate the withdrawal life and devotion of Santa Marianita and is related to the world exclusively through a revolving winch where natural products like traditional candies are sold, came to consecrate, wafers and other gentleness. The church is open Sundays in the morning and is a beautiful space worthy to visit.

BENALCÁZAR CASA
The Benalcázar House is an excellent model of the colonial civil architecture, and the Institute of Hispanic Culture offers gratuitous cultural activities there.
Continuing by the Benalcázar street until the Mejía street and advancing on this street a few meters one arrives until the Tourist Information center and Store from the City the Quinde, where regional crafts can be acquired; to ask for information on the city and to obtain pamphlets of the tourist routes of Quito.
For a rest nothing better than a good fresh juice of the great variety of national fruits in the Trattoría Patio. This cosy cafeteria offers Italian subjects of gossip in a beautiful inner patio.

Walking by the street Brown Garci'a it is also arrived at the Place of Independence, well-known like Great Place, constructed during century XVI. This glad place is one more of the scenes more important public of Quito and there solemn acts, civic congregations or artistic expressions take place continuously. All these far-reaching events happen frequently in the Great Place, but the visitor does not have the possibility of participating in one of them, can entertain itself with the cotidianidad of the place: the traditional pensioners who meet to chat, candies and mouthfuls that are offered in the surrounding coffees, or the photographers andante with its machines of technology rather retro.

CASA OF AUGUST MARIA URRUTIA
How lived the Quito aristocracy in the past century? Which were the styles of decoration and the objects desired by the accumulated families of the time more?
A detailed answer to these questions is the residence of Do6na August Maria Urrutia - an Quito aristocratic lady who besides being well-known in her time by her exquisite taste, had a much greater merit: its important social work with diverse projects like infantile dining rooms and popular residential plans that today benefit to hundreds of inhabitants of Quito.

In this house, patrimony of one of the greatest Ecuadorian fortunes, architectonic styles of centuries XIX and XX can be observed, and an endless number of interesting objects of daily use of then.
Location: Street Brown Garci'a # 760 between the streets Sucre and Bolivars. Telephones: 2580103/2580107. Schedule of attention: Tuesday to Sunday of 10h00 to 18h00

PLACE DE SAN FRANCISCO
When arriving the Spaniards, in century XVI, found that this space was used like market by the native inhabitants of Quito. There franciscan that had come to evangelizar these earth founded the first school for children and young people, with the name of San Andres, for the education of writing and reading in Castilian, song and crafts to natives, poor mestizos and Spaniards. One says that a palace occupied this lot soothes local of the government Inca. On the place the wheat in Quito seeded itself for the first time.

The facade of the Church is of herrerianas, own lines of century XVI. To the ample vestibule it is acceded by three launching slips, most interesting is the power station, of double circular launching slip. One says that its design was taken from a project of Bernini.
The contiguous chapels, on the vestibule, correspond to San Buenaventura and the following one to Our Lady of the Dolores, well-known with the name of Cantuña, in memory of Francisco Cantuña a rich native who sponsored his construction.