City Museum and Monastery of San Francisco

Day 267 – Quito, Ecuador

I started the day with a visit of the City Museum. Not because I wanted to see the dioramas without any English translation, but because it is in a former hospital and I wanted to see the building.

I did learn a bit about the history of Quito, but not that much, because my Spanish isn’t really up to par. So I looked at the exhibits and guessed as much as possible.

The building is nice, though, and they didn’t say anything about taking pictures of the chapel, so I have it.

Museo de la Ciudad – Chapel

As in most colonial buildings, it is built around a central courtyard with galleries on each side.

I enjoyed the modern patio with outdoor seating and took my lunch there. With a chocolate muffin.

And then I made my way to the monastery of San Francisco, where I was supposed to see an extensive collection of sacred art and rich furnitures. I was looking forward to the furniture but, strangely enough, the sacred art was in overwhelming majority.

Since I can look only that long at several versions of the Virgin of Quito (crowned, winged, her foot on a dragon, and occasionally standing on a crescent moon), I was a bit disappointed.

In the whole, I didn’t take to South American sacred art. Too ornate, gilded, frilled for my taste.

The cloister was nice, with the occasional painted ceiling (featured above), but the best part was the access to the choir in a mezzanine in the church. Again, they didn’t say anything about pictures, so I took advantage.

San Francisco Church

After my visit, I found the nearby fair trade shop and had a nice look around. I learnt about the tangua nut, a hard palm seed that is used as a vegetable ivory. They make bracelets and earrings out of it.

And I went back to the hostel and switched hostels, to be this time in the modern part of town.