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Located at an altitude of 2360 meters above sea level and at the foot of three snow-capped volcanoes: Chachani, Picchu-Picchu and Misti.
This city is known as "The White City", because of the light gray coloring of the buildings (made from "sillar", a volcane stone) has a beautiful colonial architecture with a Spanish influence.
The Basílica de la Catedral : Stands out because the arcades and elegant white facade of the seventeenth-century grabs your attention, even drawing your sight away from El Misti towering behind. It´s considered a marvel of renaissance style. Inside the Cathedral you can appreciate the Belgian-built organ, said to be one of the largest in South America, and a marble altar created by Felippo Moratillo.
Santa Catalina Monastery : Just two blocks of the Plaza de Armas, is the most important and prestigious religious building in Peru, with its enormous complex of rooms, cloisters and tiny plazas. It once housed almost two hundred secluded nuns and servants until it opened to the public in 1970. Nuns still live here today. It occupies an area of 20,000 m2, founded in 1580,
The quality of the design is emphasized and harmonized by a superb interplay between the strong sunlight, white stone and brilliant colours in the ceilings and in the deep blue sky above the maze of narrow interior streets. You notice this at once as you enter.
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Paucarpata .- About 7 Km. out of central Arequipa. It´s a large village surrounded by farmland based on perfectly regular pre-Inca terraces, or Paucarpata - the Quechua word from which it takes its name. There is a small colonial house "La Casa Blanca", the name comes because the material of the construction, is a fine place to while away the hours with some " Pisco Sour "(traditional drink) and take beautiful pictures of the volcanoes, farm and city.
Sabandía .- Beyond Paucarpata is Sabandía , where there´s a reconstructed colonial mill, with attractive lawns and few alpacas and llamas hanging around. Built in 1661 to supply the city, along with three others in the region, it operated continuously for some three hundred years and was capable of milling eight hundred kilos of grain in one eight-hour shift with a single operator. It was only abandoned when industrial milling took root. The surrounding scenery characterized by Inca terracing and broad vistas of surrounding mountains, is also home to a restored seventeenth-century windmill.
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