Street of Traditional Sweets of Cuenca

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Places to visit within 30 km.

Pumapungo Museum & Archaeological Park

The Pumapungo Museum and Archaeological Park, an institution of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage of Ecuador, groups the state museums of the cities of Cuenca, Loja and Riobamba, guarding, protecting and disseminating the heritage and memory. The entity was inaugurated on November 4, 1980, as Museum and Library of the Central Bank of Ecuador, Cuenca branch. In July 1984, the Central Bank acquired from the Salesian community the historical heritage of Italian father Carlos Crespi, composed of 6,585 archaeological, colonial art and ethnographic assets. Other collections that make up the Museum's nuclear heritage fund belonged to the humanists Victor Manuel Albornoz and Luis Moscoso Vega. Businessman Guillermo Vázquez Astudillo made a generous donation of prehistoric ceramics. In the 1980s, the "Pumapungo Project" of archaeological prospecting was carried out to recover the vestiges of the ancient Inca city of Tomebamba and the Huayna Cápac Palace. In a part of this 7-hectare property, the Central Bank built its regional headquarters. In the mid-90s, the Museum began to operate in the new building, which is located south of the Historical Center of Cuenca (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Since 2001, the Inka Gardens Ethnobotanical Park, with its Bird Rescue Center, has also been operating here. And you can also visit the Site Museum of the city of Tomebamba, which is a reconstruction of the vestiges of the old "tambo" (resting place for travelers) Inca. The Inca city of Tomebamna was the second administrative center of the ancient Andean empire. Another of the main attractions of the museum is the National Hall of Ethnography, an exhibition about the cultures of Ecuador, its traditions and customs. In the room "Pumapunku: worlds of memory", the archaeological findings of Pumapungo are exhibited. The museum has an art room. Three temporary exhibition rooms. The Victor M. Albornoz Library has a collection of 80,000 items: books, historical archive, historical photographic archive and map library. There is a collection of audiovisuals. Children's reading space. Information and lobby. Craft shop. Ans a small room for cultural events. Since 2010 the Museum is attached to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage of Ecuador. Its reserves, hidden from the eyes of the public, treasure hundreds of thousands of cultural objects of Ecuadorian heritage: religious and republican art, pictorial art, documentary, audiovisual, ethnography, archaeology. Also, inside the building of the Pumapungo Museum, the Central Bank of Ecuador manages a small Numismatics Museum. The complex also has the Pumapungo Theater, which has a capacity for 700 people and is equipped with modern technology to hold a variety of events.

0.60 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.

0.98 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.

1.16 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...).

1.19 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.

1.19 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.

1.31 Km.