I had Colombia down as essentially a landscape place. But so far itâs mostly a history of Spanish America place. What I didnât know and am only now discovering most other people apparently donât know either. In Tunja we seemed to be the only tourists, even though the place just brims with reminders of the colonial past. Some of them spectacular. Iâm sparing you much of it (and to some extent so did the people there: many doors didnât open, even ones advertised as being supposed to do so).
The former Dominican convent on the right (with complete double-storey cloister) is now the police headquarters. Except for the church itself. Iglesia de Santo Domingo Iglesia de Santo Domingo Yes, that is fluorescent lighting. (But they have much more of this over at Santa BĂĄrbara. It makes for interesting combinations with the ancient carvings, which admittedly at Santa BĂĄrbara aren’t quite as spectacular as these.) Iglesia de Santo Domingo Iglesia de Santo Domingo. The inscription along the margin reads âThis chapel and tomb is of Captain GarcĂa Arias Maldonado, his children and heirs. He died in the year 1568.â Central square again. The church and convent (with double-storey cloister) on the left — to the right of the modern building — were those of the Jesuits. The church is vast but somehow bare, as if most of the furnishings were missing.