Arequipa has many churches, each one a few blocks away for the next, all built with the same white stone and extraordinary in size and grandeur. We visited two of them.
The first one, was Iglesia de Compania, a Jesuit church. Originally built in the 1500’s it was destroyed by an earthquake (which plague this city due to the nearness of the many volcanoes) and rebuilt to how it’s today in the mid 1600’s. It’s also famous for it’s San Ignacio Chapel. The entire room is hand-painted with intricate designs. It was absolutely stuninning.
The second one was the Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa, the largest and considered the most important catholic church of the city. Located in the Plaza de Armas, and was built in the mid-1500’s. We were given a tour of the interior of the church, which also housed a museum filled with relics made of gold, silver and precious stones (no photos were allowed). Ravi and I estimated over a million dollars worth in those rooms. This church also over the years suffered much damage and has been reconstructed over the years. The most recent earthquake in 2001, knocked over one of the bell towers into the main church, damaging it’s beautiful organ. Today it’s in all it’s glory again. It’s main alter is built from Carrera marble from Spain. The organ is one of the largest in South America, brought over form Belgium in the 1850’s. It was absolutely beautiful and GRAND inside.
We went to the top of the roof, and saw the six huge bells, which were made in Arequipa out of bronze. The largest weighs over 6 tons. Astonishingly when the last earthquake hit, the bells remained intact, and the tower above the bells fell into the main church. The views were beautiful up here, on one side you had a birds eye view of the main square, and on the other the volcanoes.
