Iglesia y Convento de Santo Domingo

Lonely Planet review

Founded in 1542, Iglesia y Convento de Santo Domingo became the biggest and richest monastery in Antigua. Its large church was completed in 1666. Damaged by three 18th-century earthquakes, the buildings were further depleted when pillaged for construction material in the 20th century. The site is currently occupied by the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo. You can visit the hotel's public spaces, which are tastefully dotted with colonial statuary and archaeological pieces, any time.

The archaeological areas (áreas arqueológicas) form part of the paseo de museos (museum walk). It includes the very picturesque ruined monastery church (cleared of a 5m layer of rubble in the 1990s and now used for mass and weddings), the adjacent cloister with its large fountain created in 1618, and two crypts discovered in the 1990s - one, the Cripta del Calvario, boasts a pristine mural of the Crucifixion; the other holds two graves with human bones. The paseo also includes museums dedicated to colonial and contemporary art, archaeology, handicrafts and even a pharmacological museum. The price for all this may seem steep, but the entire complex is very well done - with excellent, evocative lighting and signage, it's just modern enough to let the pieces speak for themselves. Without doubt the leading museum in Antigua.