Welcome to San Salvador, the capital and largest city of El Salvador, and the country's political, cultural and financial centre. The city lies in the Salvadoran highlands, surrounded by volcanoes and prone to earthquakes, and that restless ground has shaped its history and its buildings. San Salvador is home to the country's government and to the headquarters of the Central American Integration System, and it has hosted events from the Central American and Caribbean Games to the Ibero-American Summit in 2008. Let's set off and explore.
Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador
Photo: Echa24161 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOn the northern side of Plaza Barrios rises the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Saviour. It has a dramatic history: the first cathedral, established in 1842, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1873, and its wooden successor was consumed by fire in 1951 as a distraught crowd looked on. For decades afterwards it stood as a bare concrete shell. In the late 1970s Archbishop Óscar Romero famously put off its completion so that the money could go to projects for the poor.
National Palace
Photo: Busition · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAcross the plaza stands the National Palace, built between 1905 and 1911 after its predecessor was destroyed by fire in 1889. To pay for it, a special tax of one colón was collected on every quintal of coffee exported, and the materials were imported from Germany, Italy and Belgium. Inside are 101 smaller rooms and four main halls, each with its own colour: Red, Yellow, Pink and Blue. The Blue Room, where the legislature met from 1906, is admired for its classical architecture.
Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo
Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsIn the Plaza El Salvador del Mundo, Christ stands upon a globe of the Earth, raised on a tall four-sided pedestal. This is the Monument to the Divine Saviour of the World, a symbol of El Salvador and of Salvadorans everywhere. Here is a curious detail: the pedestal was originally made for the tomb of Manuel Enrique Araujo, president from 1911 to 1913. The monument was presented in 1942, and after it was damaged in the earthquake of 1986, a public campaign helped to rebuild it.
San Salvador
Photo: Diego Brito from Antiguo Cuscatlán, El Salvador · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsLooming to the north-west of the city is the San Salvador Volcano, also called Quezaltepeque or El Boquerón. The western part of the city actually lies on its slopes, so any activity here could threaten the city below. Yet the volcano is an icon of San Salvador. Its old crater has been almost filled by a newer cone, Boquerón, and its highest point, the peak of El Picacho, reaches 1,960 metres, crowned with TV and radio antennas.
Joya de Cerén
Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAbout 36 kilometres north-west of the capital lies Joya de Cerén, the Jewel of Cerén, often called the Pompeii of the Americas. This Maya farming village was rapidly buried by volcanic ash from an eruption around AD 600, preserving it exceptionally well. Its remains have revealed everyday life in an ancient Maya farming community, including a manioc field, the earliest known evidence of manioc cultivation at an archaeological site in the New World. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
Salvadoran Museum of Art
Photo: MARTE El Salvador · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWe end at the Salvadoran Museum of Art, known as MARTE, which opened in 2003 in a purpose-built building designed by the architect Salvador Choussy. The idea grew from an association founded in 2000, whose first president was a granddaughter of the painter Valero Lecha. Its members travelled to Mexico to work out a plan for the museum. Today it welcomes more than half a million visitors a year to explore the art of El Salvador.
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