Santa Catalina Monastery

Peru’s most impressive colonial building? It’s hard to beat this 16th-century, 20,000sq m convent founded in 1580.

Like a secret world – secured behind high walls and still perfectly-preserved – Santa Catalina was a complete village hidden in urban Arequipa; a Moorish hamlet of narrow alleys, avenues of arches lined with terracotta paint and whitewash, and secret, fountain-tingling orange-blossom-scented atrium-gardens.

The convent has innumerable works by Cusco School artists, a colonial movement fusing European and indigenous traditions. The painting of Saint Jerome in the convent museum, the Sala Zurbaran, is a treasured example.

Alongside the art, it’s as atmospheric as a Spaghetti Western and sits under a smoking volcano and a permanently blue sky. It also provides an intriguing insight into the life of the Arequipa elite during the colonial heyday.