The Santa Catalina Monastery

Tour in pictures

A couple of days ago during my stay in Arequipa I visited the Santa Catalina Monastery. It covers an area of 20 thousand square meters in the historical part of the city and is called often – „a city within the city“. Amazing is the fact that the monastery was built in 1579 – less than 40 years after the Spanish conquistadors brought the Christianity from Europe.
The convent is considered as the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. It was built from Sillar – white volcanic stone.
It is told that women from diverse social backgrounds have entered the convent to serve as nuns but there are many signs that the most nuns were very wealthy and brought with them finest silk curtains and rugs and used to have servants.
Nowadays in the monastery are living only 20 nuns in the North part. The other parts are open for tourists. There I took this colorful wonderful pictures!

Mrs Bräumelova