1 August, 2018

Visiting the Monastery of Santa Catalina

The Monastery of Santa Catalina is a must in your visit to Arequipa. There is no excuse: even if you get to the White City on a business trip, you have to save a few hours to make a tour in this place that wins the love of all those who visit it.

The Monastery of Santa Catalina is located just two blocks away from the Plaza de Armas or Main Square and from our hotel Tierra Viva Arequipa Plaza. This construction, commissioned by the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, was inaugurated in 1579. It has 20,000 square meters and it is like a mini-city inside Arequipa.

The entire monastery is walled and it has cloisters, squares, streets, tile roofs and stone floors. Most of the walls and the instances are made with white and pink sillar, a volcano stone typical of Arequipa. The Monastery of Santa Catalina is one of the great architectural works of the White City and has led it to earn the title of Heritage of Humanity by Unesco.

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Walking through its passageways, the tourist can imagine the life of the cloistered nuns that lived here surrounded by a great wall that disconnected and isolated them from the outside world.

Inside, in addition to enjoying the typical colonial architecture of Latin America, you will be able to see various paintings from the Cusqueña School as well as carvings and images that tell us how life was in Arequipa in the time of the conquest.

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It is highly recommended that you make the visit with a guide: their explanations will transport you to the time of the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo and Doña María de Guzmán, the first resident of the monastery. In addition, there are some theatrical visits in which a group of actors recreates the life of the people who lived in this convent.

The price of admission to the Monastery of Santa Catalina without a guide is $12.50 for adults and $6.11 for young people under 21 and you can buy it through its website.

Schedule: Monday to Friday from 10:00 a. m. to 1:00 p. m. and from 3:00 p. m. to 6:00 p. m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a. m. to 12:00 p. m.

Address: Santa Catalina, 301.

If you are planning your business trip to Arequipa, we will wait for you at our hotel Tierra Viva Arequipa Plaza. Check out our rooms, our availability and book through our website: http://tierravivahoteles.com

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