The most beautiful churches cathedrals basilicas and chapels Arequipa

The Compañía represents the most complete form of 16th-century architecture. It is in the mixed baroque style of the Arequipa school and, together with the Cathedral of Puno, is its finest achievement. The lateral façade of worked stone shows Santiago (Saint James) in a characteristic attitude of killer of Moors. Don't forget to visit the sublime Capilla de San Ignacio with its polychrome dome entirely covered with plant, animal and mineral motifs.

Entirely built (and rebuilt after earthquakes, the last of which, in June 2001, brought down one of its two bell towers) in sillar, a white volcanic stone, it displays its seventy columns, its three doors and its two lateral arches on a whole section of the plaza de Armas: the "facade" that one discovers is in fact only one of its sides. Inside, there are some interesting paintings and sculptures, a monumental altar made of Carrara marble, large organs made in Belgium and a pulpit carved in Lille by a certain Rigot.

This complex includes the Franciscan church, the convent and the small temple of the Tercera Orden. The Franciscan church has been shaken more than once by the hiccups of the earth. Inspired by the late Romanesque style, with reminiscences of Mudejar (Andalusian Arabic style), it has a white stone and red brick façade. As for the Tercera Orden church, one enters this large chapel through a stone door, worked in the purest Arequipa tradition.