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La Antigua Guatemala was founded as Santiago de Guatemala (St. James of Guatemala). Located previously at the Kaqchikel site of Iximché in 1524 and then next door to Ciudad Vieja (San Miguel Escobar) in 1527, the first city council met in this valley on March 10, 1543. Since St. James is the patron saint of [...]

La Antigua Guatemala, founded in 1543, is surrounded by 15 villages or aldeas. In urban terms, an aldea is part of a municipality, La Antigua being the municipality.

After much anticipation, the Antigua municipality is building a training center (Centro de Capacitación Municipal) at the entrance to the city—near Santa Inés. The center’s focus on weekdays will be on arts and skills for 9th graders, the diversity of classes include everything from baking to mechanical engineering. On weekends the facility will be open [...]

Trying to keep up with La Antigua’s processions can be a job in itself. Some are celebrated every year … but then there is the occasional “anniversary” procession that may seem to come out of the blue! One procession we can count on is Santo Hermano Pedro Day on Sunday, April 25. Hermano Pedro is [...]

Visitors to La Antigua Guatemala are quite happy to see that many of the municipal trucks run on bio-diesel. Discarded cooking oil is collected at restaurants, filtered through technology set up in conjunction with Bio Persa www.biopersa.com (supported by the Swiss government), and we all benefit in Antigua. Then the inevitable question, “What about recycling [...]

Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) is celebrated by many people throughout the world. In English-speaking countries, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other with Valentine’s Day cards (winged cupids are among the favorites), flowers and special dinners. Commercial valentines were introduced in the 1800s. The history of St. Valentine—its patron [...]