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Places to visit within 30 km.

Center of Embroidery Cuenca

With 31 years of experience and a solid position in the international market, the Center of Embroidery Cuenca brings together dozens of craftswomen. Their products are handmade with natural fibers. Winner of the UNESCO Crafts Prize of Excellence 2014. The crafts of this cooperative created in Cuenca in 1989 are exclusive. They were 132 the founders of 11 rural communities of Cuenca, Paute and Gualaceo. It is an organization of Popular and Solidarity Economy (EPS), with the departments of design, technical area, production and administration. Its members believe in equitable development for all. They compete nationally and internationally by offering a variety of quality artistic products. The natural fibers with which they work are cotton, alpaca wool, toquilla straw, with a mixture of embroidery and fabrics. Among their works, the production of clothes such as T-shirts, blouses or dresses stands out. For the home they make table linen, napkins, rugs, bread and wine makers. They have a production line of duvets filled with alpaca wool. Toquilla straw hats and cards. It distributes to different points of the capital of the Azuay, to Quito and Guayaquil. It has clients in Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Chile, Japan, the United States and Canada. The Center protects the art of hand embroidery. To be born in 1989, they received the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Ecuadorian Fund for the Development of the People (FEPP). During these decades of work it has achieved the organization of women, control of intermediaries, training and a better level of income. The members of the cooperative strive to provide full customer satisfaction under strict quality standards and by putting maximum dedication into their embroidery. The Centre has a website with an online shopping function and digital catalogue.

0.43 Km.

La Merced Piazza & Traditional Neighborhood

The Piazza de La Merced is a small esplanade of 1,500 m2. It is the center of an intense social life, especially at night, in the Historical Center of Cuenca, a city declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The square is delimited by the streets Borrero, Honorato Vásquez and Calle Larga. But the neighborhood, of the same name, also keeps a lot of history. The piazza is a space adapted for pedestrians and bicycles. All kinds of cultural, social and artistic activities can be carried out there. It is a space for recreation and meeting of citizens. It has good lighting at night. The piazza preserves several examples of heritage trees, including a poplar and several jacarandas that, when they bloom between September and November, fill it with color. A statue of the priest Julio Maria Matovelle dominates the center of the piazza. This famous priest was a teacher, lawyer, literati, historian, politician and founder of the Congregation of the Oblate Mothers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. The construction of the small square began around 1850, as did the church. The La Merced neighborhood is traditionally a sector of workers with a strong religious character. However, today the nightlife is intense in La Merced due to the development of activities such as offices, bars, restaurants, discos and hotels. The Remigio Crespo Toral Museum, the La Merced Church, the old house of the Workers Alliance, the Santísima Virgen del Río Chapel, the Julio María Matovelle Educational Unit, and the Abraham Lincoln Cultural Center are all located in the vicinity.

1.62 Km.

Homero Ortega Toquilla Straw Hat Factory

Homero Ortega is the brand name of an important producer of hats and other toquilla straw articles in the city of Cuenca. For 120 years and five generations, the Ortega family has given continuity to this economic activity, making it the oldest and most experienced organization in the export of straw hats. In 2012 UNESCO inscribed the Traditional Ecuadorian Toquilla Straw Hat Weaving Technique on the list of Intangible World Cultural Heritage. The factory has been based, since its creation until today, in the urban parish of El Vecino, in the city of Cuenca. Homero Ortega is its founder, linked to this work since he was a child. He learned the business from his father Aurelio Ortega García. In the beginning, together they ventured through the dangerous route of "El Cajas" to Guayaquil. In the port they sold hats to merchants who took them to Panama on ships. During the 20th century, the company consolidates and grows. Its success is based on the capacity to adapt to the different scenarios of the world market, to the conception of the toquilla straw hat as a manifestation of the popularity and the production with quality. An outstanding element of Homero Ortega is the Museum "The Magic of the Hat", open to the public since 2008. It was the concretion of a project of public diffusion of the history of the toquilla straw hat as a handmade product in Ecuador. The Museum has three rooms: the history of the hat, its elaboration and the trajectory of the company. Visitors enjoy an interactive experience. One of the most photographed and recognized prints is the toquillera artisan that demonstrates how the hat is woven. The Museum is a member of ICOM, a UNESCO partner institution. Some historical data of the permanent exhibition of the Museum are the following: the Azuayan businessman Bartolomé Serrano had the initiative to teach the hat weaving to the artisans of Azuay and Cañar in 1835, through weavers of the city of Montecristi, to face a strong economic crisis; the toquilla straw hat was the number one export product of Ecuador between 1944 and 1946; the first exports took place in the middle of the XIX century from Manabí; from Cuenca the exports began in 1890.

2.11 Km.

Municipal Economuseum "Casa del Sombrero"

The Municipal Economuseum "Casa del Sombrero" has four permanent exhibition rooms where visitors can appreciate the art of weaving the toquilla straw hat through videos, photographic representations, objects and materials used over time for this artisan work , practiced since pre-Columbian times. It has two exhibition rooms and sales of hats and articles made of toquilla straw.

2.98 Km.

Rotary Square

Cuenca stands out for our variety and quality of handicrafts. Rotary Square is a traditional place where you can buy countless forms of handcrafted items. For many years, Cuencanos have acquired their household items here: furniture, ceramics (flowerpots, vases, crockery), wrought iron (crosses, agricultural tools, plant stands), natural fibers (baskets, fans, etc...).

2.99 Km.

House of the Toquilla Straw Hat

A walk through the workshops and museums of the toquilla straw hat, curiously worldwide known as "Panama Hat", will make you discover that in fact it is original from and elaborated in Ecuador. One of the regions where it is woven is in the Ecuadorian Southern Andes, in the provinces of Azuay and Cañar. On December the 5th, 2012 UNESCO declared the traditional knitting of the toquilla straw hat as Intangible World Heritage. In order to recover the historical memory of this handicraft the Municipal Museum-Workshop “Casa del Sombrero” (House of the Hat) was inaugurated in 2014, in the city of Cuenca. It is located is in an old and emblematic house that functioned as a factory of hats. The initiative is public and free to enter. The elaboration of the hat was the economic foundation of the Ecuadorian population, especially in the south of the country, during the 20th century. Private initiatives also contribute to keep spaces where the story of the Toquilla straw hat is told. The first is the “Hat Museum” of the Paredes Roldán family (Calle Larga and Padre Aguirre, Historic Center, Cuenca, Ecuador). The factory continues operating on the site and the visitor can buy a custom-made hat. The second space is the Museum “La Magia del Sombrero” of the Homero Ortega company (Avenida Gil Ramirez Davalos 3-86, behind the Land Terminal, Cuenca, Ecuador). In 1830 the hats were commercialized in Panama. The Ecuadorian hat gained popularity because of being: resistant, light weighted, foldable for storage, combinable with light summer clothing and because of allowing sweat to evaporate. When the Panama Canal was constructed the workers used it and in 1903 a photograph of the President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, wearing this hat during a visit to the canal was widely publicized, which gave rise to the name of “Panama hat”. All this history and industry is based on the work of thousands of artisans and weavers who live in the small towns near Cuenca, such as Chordeleg, Gualaceo, Sígsig, Azogues and Biblián. The hat is also known as the “Jipijapa hat” or “Montecristi hat”, towns at the Ecuadorian Pacific coast that were the original centers of its elaboration.

2.99 Km.