Which churches are worth the ticket
There are more colonial churches within twenty minutes' walk of our door than you have hours in Quito. Several charge to go inside. Most guides list all of them and rank none. Here is the version we would give a friend with one free day: two you should pay for without hesitating, one you climb, and a handful you can put your head into for free and move on.
The short version
- La Compañía de Jesús — pay, go in, do not skip it. The best interior in the country.
- San Francisco — the church is free; the convent museum is worth the ticket if you like art.
- The Basílica del Voto Nacional — pay for the towers, not for the nave. Not on your first day at altitude.
- Everything else — look in, admire, keep walking. That is a legitimate way to see a city of churches.
- Many close for a couple of hours over lunch. Plan mornings.
Why there are so many
Quito's historic centre was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1978 — in the very first group ever listed, alongside Kraków. It earned that place by being the least altered colonial centre in Latin America, a city that earthquakes damaged repeatedly and that was rebuilt each time rather than replaced.
What filled it was the Quito School: three centuries of workshops in which Spanish and Flemish techniques were taught to indigenous and mestizo artists, who then made something that was neither European nor pre-Columbian but specifically of this place. Gilded wood, polychrome sculpture, and a habit of slipping local elements past the censors — Andean fruit in a European still life, indigenous faces on European saints, a sun disc above a doorway to make the new religion legible to people who already had one.
You are not looking at imported architecture. You are looking at what happened when it landed here.
The one you must go inside
La Compañía de Jesús
If you enter one paid building in Quito, make it this one.
The Jesuits spent roughly 160 years on it, and the interior is covered — walls, columns, vaults, altars — in gold leaf over carved wood, in a baroque so total that people frequently stop talking on the way in. It is routinely called the most beautiful church in Ecuador and is a serious candidate for the most beautiful in South America.
There is an entrance fee, which is entirely justified and goes to the maintenance of something extraordinarily fragile. Photography inside is restricted. Our advice is to accept that gladly: put the phone away and spend twenty minutes actually looking, which is a rarer experience than a photograph of it.
Look for the Moorish geometry in the ceiling, and for the faces on the sculptures — many are not European.
The one that is free, and enormous
San Francisco
The oldest church in Quito, begun in 1536, barely a year after the Spanish founded the city on the ruins of the Inca one. The complex covers around three hectares with thirteen cloisters, and it dominates one of the great plazas in the Americas.
The church itself is free to enter. Walk in, sit down, look up at the Moorish-influenced ceiling and the gilt. Photography is restricted here too.
The convent museum charges, and it is where the Quito School collection lives — sixteenth- and seventeenth-century painting and sculpture, the choir, and access to parts of the complex you would otherwise never see. If you have an interest in art or in colonial history, it is the best value ticket in the Old Town. If you do not, the free church is plenty.
The story of Cantuña
Legend says that Cantuña, an indigenous builder, contracted to finish the atrium of San Francisco by a deadline he could not possibly meet. With time running out he made a pact with the devil: his soul in exchange for the work being completed overnight.
As the devil's demons laid the final stones, Cantuña removed one and hid it. At dawn the work was unfinished by a single stone, the contract was void, and his soul was his own.
People will point out the missing stone. There are several candidates. That is rather the point.
The one you climb
La Basílica del Voto Nacional
The largest neo-Gothic church in the Americas, 115 metres tall, begun in the late nineteenth century and — depending on who you ask — still not formally finished. It is a five-minute walk from our door and it is the building you will photograph most.
Two things make it worth your money, and neither is the nave.
The gargoyles. Where a European cathedral has griffins and demons, this one has Galápagos tortoises, iguanas, armadillos, condors, monkeys and pumas. It is the single best joke in Ecuadorian architecture and it takes a while to notice.
The towers. You cross a wooden walkway suspended above the nave, then climb steep metal staircases and open ladders to the clock towers and the condor tower. The view over the Old Town, El Panecillo and the mountains is the best in the city that does not require a cable car.
Be clear about what this involves: exposed ladders, steep steps, and real height. It is not for anyone with vertigo, and it is not the thing to do on your first day at 2,850 m — it is a genuine physical effort. Day two or three. There is a café in the towers, which is a strange and excellent place to have a coffee.
Local legend has it that the world will end when the Basílica is completed. Construction continues, slowly, which some people find reassuring.
The rest, briefly
- Catedral Metropolitana, on the Plaza Grande — charges entry, holds the tomb of Antonio José de Sucre. Historically important; visually the least rewarding of the paid options. Go if you have time, skip it if you do not.
- El Sagrario, beside the cathedral — free, small, and its painted ceiling is better than it has any right to be. Two minutes well spent.
- Santo Domingo — a fine plaza and an interesting church, usually quiet. Free to look in.
- La Merced — free, less visited, and the interior is a surprise. A good one to wander into.
- Museo del Carmen Alto — a former convent, now a museum about the cloistered life of the nuns who lived there. Charges entry. Quieter and more unusual than any of the above, and the one visitors most often say they wish they had known about.
Practical notes
- Mornings. Many churches close for a couple of hours over lunch and shut by late afternoon. Confirm hours on the day rather than trusting a website, including this one.
- Prices change. Entry fees are a few dollars each and are adjusted periodically. Take cash in small bills; card payment is not reliable.
- Photography is restricted in the two most spectacular interiors. It is enforced. Do not argue with the staff.
- These are working churches. Services happen, sometimes when you want to visit. Cover your shoulders, keep your voice down, and do not photograph people at prayer.
- Sunday is for worship rather than sightseeing in most of them.
If you only have time for one
La Compañía. Twenty minutes, a few dollars, and nothing else in Ecuador is like it.
If you have three hours: La Compañía, then walk to San Francisco and sit in the plaza, then the Basílica towers on the way back up towards San Blas. That is the Old Town's architecture in one morning, and it is mostly downhill until the last stretch.
Does it fit your stopover?
- Two nights — yes, easily, and this is a better use of a morning than any day trip.
- Arriving today — the free churches, sitting down, at your own pace. Save the tower climb.
- Any day it rains — this is the rain plan. Quito's showers come in the afternoon and the interiors do not care.
The full walking sequence is in 48 and 72 hours in Quito.
What we do here
Reception will tell you what is actually open today, what it costs this month, and whether there is a service on that would make a visit awkward. We are five minutes from the Basílica and ten from the Plaza Grande, so this is a walk you can start from the front door — downhill on the way out, which matters more than it sounds at 2,850 m.
Walk out of the door and into the UNESCO site
Nine rooms in a restored 1914 house on the quiet edge of the Old Town. Book direct for our lowest rate, and ask at breakfast what is open today.
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Useful in front of a ticket window when you are deciding.
