Pumapungo Museum &amp; Archaeological Park

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Nearby attractions

Places to visit within 30 km.

Todos los Santos (All Saints) & Puente Roto (Broken Bridge) Historical Area

The beauty of Todos Santos goes hand in hand with variety. This sector of Cuenca, like no other in the city, merges history, with traditions, archaeology, landscape, architectural development and El Barranco. Walking just one block you can see some landmarks. The first church in Cuenca, a hermitage or chapel, was built in Todos Santos, superimposed on an Inca usno. The present church and convent passed into the hands of the congregation of Oblate nuns at the end of the 19th century. The Calle Larga, one of the oldest streets in the city, crosses the site. It was the Calle de La Ronda. Its scenic viewpoint offers the tourist panoramic views of the modern part of Cuenca and the mountains. A few steps further down are the stone remains of the mills that belonged to the encomendero Rodrigo Nuñez de Bonilla. In the peripheral area of the initial layout, in Todos Santos the Spaniards began to populate the city. Todos Santos and its structures are a fundamental part of the landscape of El Barranco. Its descent, after the El Vado ascent, is the other connection between the Historical Center and the modern city. Next to it is the famous Puente Roto (broken bridge). The flooding of the Tomebamba on November 3, 1950 made the bridge forever the eternal watchtower of the river. This is a very busy and recommended place to look at the landscape, take pictures of the church or simply walk around. The traditional work activity of Todos Santos is the bakeries. There are also museums and handicraft shops.

0.53 Km.

Street of Traditional Sweets of Cuenca

The elaboration and consumption of traditional sweets is a very Cuencan custom, inherited from the colony. The cloistered nuns' convents work in this trade and the families of Cuenca buy them as a special gift for relatives and friends. Also known as "Dulces de Corpus Christi". They consist of a variety of sweets that abound during the Septennial celebration in June. The Septenary or the Feast of Corpus Christi is the oldest religious celebration in Cuenca, established with the Foundation of the city. It consists of 7 days of festivities in homage to the Body of Christ. During this time the desired sweets are massively sold in the dozens of stalls that are installed in the Calderon Park. The Septenary or Corpus Christi is under the organization of the Archdiocese of Cuenca, which appoints priostes, one for each day. The priostes cover the expenses of village bands, balloons, castles, and mad cows. In Brother Miguel, in one of the old cells of the Monastery of the Conceptas, adapted to the street for renting, there is a traditional store that sells Corpus Christi sweets all year round. It bears the suggestive name of "El Suspiro". In the same block, in front of this shop, there is another one that also sells sweets all year round: Corpus. These are two examples of the creativity and industriousness of Cuenca's craftsmen and women. Family enterprises of these sweets exist all over the city. They offer the same product. The difference is in the recipes, in the ways of making them. Formulas inherited from generation to generation. The options are countless throughout the Historical Center. With flour, fruits, milk, eggs, coconut and sugar there is how to obtain more than 30 varieties, among them the quesitos, cocadas, sugar fruits, faldiquera eggs, quesadillas, alfajores, nuns, suspiros, handkerchiefs, pucañahuis, kuskingas, roscas, roscones, chocolate guinea pigs... The most economical and popular are the quesitos.

0.60 Km.

De la Madre (Mother's) Park & Planetarium

Parque de la Madre, a quarry of Ecuadorian sports champions. There you will find the headquarters of the internationally famous "Luis Chocho" Walking School. On its old trails, the walker Jefferson Perez trained towards the first Olympic gold medal of Ecuador in Atlanta 96. The 500 m athletic track, three lanes, paved with special synthetic material, is used every day by dozens of professional and amateur athletes, to train for future competitions. The bicycle path allows alternative mobility. There is a multipurpose court, children's games and green areas to rest. Cuenca honored Jefferson Perez and coach Luis Chocho by erecting monuments to their sporting achievements. The Parque de la Madre, formerly called Parque del Ejército, changed its name in 1966, when its third monument was inaugurated, dedicated to La Madre, a bronze work by artist Paúl Palacio. The Park occupies 36,000 m2 between Florencia Astudillo Avenue, Doce de Abril Avenue and Federico Malo Street. It has two parking lots, one open-air and one underground. Important institutional and heritage infrastructures are built nearby, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Industries, the Todos Santos religious complex, the CIDAP, the staircases, the Military Hospital and the stadium. An essential attraction of the sector is the Planetarium Ciudad de Cuenca. It carries out important educational and scientific dissemination work on the Universe, the stars and the solar system. It has state-of-the-art projection equipment that accurately replicates the position of the stars in the celestial vault. It carries out an agenda of complementary activities related to astronomy, such as conferences, talks, direct observation of the sky or through telescopes, audiovisuals. The capacity of its room is for 100 people. Inclusive space, accessible to people with disabilities.

0.72 Km.

Las Conceptas Cloister & Museum

The Museum of the Concepts of Cuenca permanently exhibits an outstanding collection of religious art. It has been in operation since 1986 in the southeast wing of the cloister of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, on the corner of Calle Hermano Miguel and Calle Juan Jaramillo. Its collection consists of 470 items, mainly paintings and sculptures, clothing, ornaments, furniture, chests, trunks and cabinets. Porcelain, ceramics, glass, opaline, miniatures and toys. The Museum's collections are part of the heritage that the nuns contributed over four centuries to the convent. The Museum has spaces for workshops and public events. It offers guide services and refreshments to visiting groups by reservation. Founded on November 3, 1986. It has 24 exhibition rooms, an auditorium that used to be a cemetery and a beautiful garden. The largest house in Cuenca in 1599 belonged to Doña Leonor Ordóñez. That house in the center of the city, between Presidente Cordova, Borrero, Juan Jaramillo and Hermano Miguel streets, was donated to the cloister convent of the Concepts. The daughters of Ordóñez, Jerónima, Leonor and Ángela were the first to enter the congregation. For 400 years the nuns have been doing embroidery, as a way of making a living. Today they continue to make banners, tablecloths, church vestments, dresses for images and liturgical vestments. In the convent there is one of the first bakeries in Cuenca, with wood-burning ovens. This activity is related to the "barrio de las panaderías" or Todos Santos, a place of much culture. The nuns continue the tradition of making "dulces de corpus". The monastery has the church with its typical belfry; main and secondary cloisters with porticoed corridors and transit passages or "chiflones" at the corners; spaces for praying the psalm and eating; the Chapter House, currently the convent's archive; novitiate cells, service areas and vegetable garden. The church itself is a work of art, with an important cultural heritage.

0.92 Km.

Former Palace of Justice in Cuenca

The facade of the "Palacio de Justicia" (the Palace of Justice or Courthouse) in the city of Cuenca occupies one of the corners of the Calderon Park or Central Park. It is an emblematic building. Along with the New Cathedral, the City Hall and a group of houses in the Historical Center, they have made "the city of marble" another name well earned by Cuenca. In addition, this building is part of the area declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The symbolic meaning of the structure of the Courthouse is important in the urban area, because it was built between 1914 and 1925 as the headquarters of the University of Cuenca. So, for a long time, the building’s main function was to generate knowledge, education and culture. Today its lobby is used for cultural and social events, with main access to the Sucre Theater. Although its architectural style is neoclassical, the materials used to build it are of diverse origin, an eclectic combination of Sayausí marble, bricks produced at El Tejar, polychrome brass for the ceilings imported from France, and colored glass brought from Belgium. The humanist Octavio Cordero Palacios was appointed by the University Board as director of the work, based on the designs of the Quito architect Francisco Espinoza. Around 1950 and after 25 years of operation, the property was sold to the Ecuadorian state. The State assigned it to the Judicial Function, and it was named "Palace of Justice". It houses the Provincial Court of Justice of Azuay. The marble, the dome, the cornices, the giant columns, the heraldic shields, make its facade very striking. That is why it is one of the most photographed buildings in the Historical Center of Cuenca, a World Heritage Site.

1.18 Km.

Cuenca's Old Cathedral & Museum

The Old Cathedral or Iglesia del Sagrario is an emblematic building in the Historic Center that marks the south-east corner of Calderon Park. It is considered to be the oldest building in Cuenca. The church was planned since the very moment of the city’s foundation in 1557, when the original layout designated a block of land to build it. Its foundations were built with carved stones from the Cañari-Inca city of Tomebamba. Some milestones are part of the history of this church. For example, the building work took three and a half centuries, between extensions, adaptations and ornamentation works, always counting on the contribution of the city's inhabitants. It was finished in 1924, with the mural painting of the artist Nicolás Vivar. Another important event occurred in the 18th century, when the French Geodesic Mission of 1736 used the church’s old tower to measure the arc of the earth's meridian. A commemorative plaque, attributed to the Colombian sage Caldas, says "Tower more famous than the pyramids of Egypt", in reference to the Geodesic Mission. The first public clock was installed in the bell tower overlooking Sucre Street in 1751. And the first bellows organ in the city, which still exists today, was mounted in the church choir in 1739. Another very singular fact is that Cuenca is one of the few cities in Ecuador, if not the only one, that has two cathedrals one in front of the other: The New or Immaculate Cathedral and the Old Cathedral. For some decades the Old Cathedral stopped being used for regular religious services and after its most recent renovation in 1999, it became a Museum of Religious Art and a place for concerts and cultural events. Its art collection includes sculptures by Miguel Vélez and Gaspar Sangurima and paintings by Daniel Alvarado, Nicólas Henriquez and Rafael Vivar. In addition, it is possible to admire the original model of the New Cathedral, work of Juan Baustista Stiehle, exposed in one of the chapels of the Church and through an archaeological window it is possible to observe the ossuary in the subsoil of the temple. In the house of the canons there is a permanent exhibition of old photographs of Cuenca. The Old Cathedral offers guided tour service for visitors.

1.20 Km.