This morning we were actually able to see one of the three volcanoes that surrounds Antigua. We will have to come back here in the dry season to see the other two.
Elizabeth Bell owns and operates a local Antiguan tour company. Her father worked for Sunset magazine and they lived in Palo Alto California. She moved to Antigua with her family in 1976 when she was 14. She has lived here ever since, is now a Guatemalan citizen and is a local scholar of Antigua history. She leads walking tours of Antigua and we and four other people went on her tour this morning. It was fantastic! She talked about the government, city politics and mostly the history of Antigua and it’s buildings and how they have been preserved and restored.
We visited the city hall, the cathedral, the jade museum and the Santa Domingo museum. She told us all about the restoration and how Antigua has changed over the past 40 years. It was fascinating.
After the tour we explode the Santa Domingo museum some more. It is partly a hotel now and the cathedral ruin is an outdoor church that is used for weddings.
We also went to the chocolate museum and some of the Mayan jade stores where we did some shopping 🙂
We did some shopping at a traditional candy store too.
For dinner we went back to the Casa Escobar Steak House where we ate the first night. Again the steak was tender and tasty, the service was perfect, the wine was good and this time we topped off our meal with Cream Brûlée and coffee. Perfection!
I loved Antigua and could definitely come back again.
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