Centro Cultural Metropolitano

Lonely Planet review

Just off Plaza Grande, the outstanding Centro Cultural Metropolitano was the first restoration work undertaken in the old town. Opened in 2000, it fast became an island of cultural activity and the impetus behind the old town's renovation. It houses several temporary art exhibits and hosts excellent art shows on the main interior patio. Along with two more interior patios and two beautiful rooftop terraces (all worth seeing), it houses an auditorium, a library and a pleasant café.

The building itself, which you can wander freely, is rich in history. It was supposedly the pre-Hispanic site of one of the Inca Atahualpa's palaces. A Jesuit school from 1597 to 1767, it then became a cuartel (army barracks). In 1809 royalist forces imprisoned a group of revolutionaries here and gruesomely murdered them a year later. The grisly act is memorialized in a wax exhibit in the on-site Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño (admission additional around US$1 ).