Antigua

Beautiful, hidden city that is well worth a visit. It reminded me of Santa Fe.

Casa Santo Domingo was the bastion of one of the most grand convents of America: the one that sheltered the followers of the order of Santo Domingo de Guzmán. You can buy beautiful large handmade church candles here that you will want to take back home for all of your friends. There are archeological ruins on the grounds and an interesting museum. The photo is of the ancient gravesites for former preists also on the grounds.

Nice Island. No hurry to go back though.

Antigua is very much an atmosphere – merchants selling a variety of colurfull products (bought my wife a blouse – she loved it!), locals wandering, smells, architecture, restauraunts…

I visited during lent – and that of course added more colour – mostly purple.

To sum it up – not the peak of travel, but worth a visit.

The town is overrun with people, but it is definitely worth going for the week. We arrived on the bus at the beginning of the week without hotel/hostel reservations because there were none left. Fortunately there were services offering to set you up in a family’s house that was renting rooms for the week, so we ended up with a great cheap place to stay.
But, the really good stuff are the amazing “carpets” that people spend hours making in the street of colored sawdust and flowers, so that the sad processions can walk through and ruin them later in the day.

My Spanish teacher was just in Guatamala, and said that Antigua is absolutely beautiful to see. So, I’m adding it to my list of places to visit some day. :)

i lived here over a summer, it was lots of fun.

The architecture, ruins and volcanoes make this a treasure. Make sure you stay in the Casa Santo Domingo. It was a convent that made candles and now it is very pretty with old brick walls lined with candles. Amazing.

When I first got here, my first impression was “Melrose with Cobblestones.” It’s a great place to take people who are newbies at traveling. However, I got a fabulous spa DAY here for a mere $25!

I went to Guatemala for a month some years back, and this was my favorite of all the places we visited.