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 Our partner school in San Francisco de Quito. Quito is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in northern Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of the Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains.
The "centro histórico", historical center, as it is called, was appointed, along with the historic center of Kraków (Cracovia), Poland, as the first UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Site [28] in 1978 and has many appealing plazas (the Independence Plaza being the most important) and manierist and baroque churches, including: the Cathedral, the convent and church of St. Francis, which is the largest building of the Colonial era built by the Spaniards in South America; the church of El Sagrario; convent and church of Santo Domingo; and the church of the Society of Jesus, or "La Compañía," which was built after the model of the Church of the Gesu in Rome. The Sucre Theater, where concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador are held, is in the vicinity. There also are several museums, many dedicated to Colonial art and history. The most renowned are the City Museum ("Museo de la Ciudad") [29], the Metropolitan Cultural Center and the museum of the Convent of St. Francis. Markets are scattered throughout the area. |