CITY TOURS BASIC SANTA CATALINA

Lenght of Time : Three hours
Departures : Daily at 8:30 am and at 2:00 p.m.
Includes :

Official tourist guide in foreign language
Transportation in private tourist units
Tickets to Monasterio de Santa Catalina, La Capilla de San Ignacio (La Compañía)

PROGRAM

FIRST DAY

8:30 a.m

Pick up of passengers from the hotel

9:00 a.m

Our tour will start in the town of Carmen Alto. From its Mirador (lookout point) we will appreciate the three imposing volcanoes which surround Arequipa, Misti (5,825 m), Chachani (6,075) and Pichu Pichu (5,325 m), as well as the impressive landscape and terraces. Later on we shall go to visit the traditional and colonial town of Yanahuara, its main plaza, church, cloisters and typical houses with narrow streets, built with the white volcanic stone called "sillar", reason why Arequipa is known as the "White City". Further on we will get to the oldest part of the city (Historic downtown) which was declared by UNESCO as Cultural Heritage of Humanity. You will visit the Plaza de Armas (Main Square), surrounded by three portals made of granite stone and vaults of brick, and the fountain made with three bronze plates and in its top the figure of a soldier of the XVI century, called "Tuturutu". Then we shall visit the Basilica Catedral (year 1656), considered one of the first neoclassic religious monuments, damaged by a fire in 1844 and rebuilt in 1868. It is 107 m long and it is decorated with 70 columns in classic style, two big towers and two bronze medallions. Inside there are many religious works and paintings. The main altar is in Italian marble from Carrara. The Pulpit sculptured in cedar wood by a famous French carver Paul Renaul, made in France, and the pipe organ made in Belgium in the XVII century. After that we will go to the Convent of La Compañía de Jesús, built by the Jesuits, the most beautiful expression of the religious architecture with its church (1573). the polychrome Chapel of Saint Ignacio de Loyola as well as the cloisters with decorated arches in sillar, the typical white volcanic stone, the vaulted walls and columns in exuberant baroque and the altars covered in gold leaf. Finally, will visit the Santa Catalina Monastery (1580) a small town in a town, all made in sillar with an extension of 20,000 m2, with peculiar characteristics where cloistered nuns built their private rooms and had a life under severe confinement. Behind those thick and tall walls there are designs and architectural forms which are a mixture of native and spanish elements. The convent is of the XVI century all built with narrow streets bordered with homogeneous tile roofed houses with sillar walls colored in shades of clay. Inside there are the important Claustros de los Naranjos, Apprenticeship, the Major Cloister, Museo Precolombino and the Pinacoteca (Art Gallery).

12:00 p.m