Museo de Arte Religioso

Inside the beautifully restored, 16th-century convent of the Conceptas nuns, Riobamba’s Museo de Arte Religioso houses one of the country’s finest collections of 17th- and 18th-century religious art. Once upon a time, many upper-class girls were sent to this convent for confined education within its walls. The museum shows the nuns’ bleak cells and even the scourges they used to ‘punish’ themselves. The museum’s signature piece is a priceless, meter-tall monstrance inlaid with more than 1500 precious stones including emeralds, pearls, diamonds, rubies, amethysts and aquamarines. Made of solid gold with a solid silver base, it weighs over 360kg (making it incredibly difficult to steal).