The Coffee Region: Panoramic Tour of Manizales

 

Manizales is a city of rugged topography and steep streets. Its downtown area is located on the crest of mountains, an ideal spot for looking at the snow-peaked mountains of the central range of the Andes. The city tour includes several buildings that have been declared national monuments:

• two of them are religious

The Ermita de la Enea and the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Rosario are in the first group. The former was built of mud and wood and evokes the religious architecture brought to the area during the times of the Antioquenian colonization. The latter was built in the neo-gothic style on a design by Julien Auguste Polty, at one time chief of historic monuments in Paris.

• two of them are related to old transportation systems

The capital of the department of Caldas, on the central mountain range.The second group is made up of the railway station and the cable car station. The cable car is no longer in operation. Its 80 kilometers connected Manizales to the town of Mariquita and was considered the longest cable car system in the world in its time

The historic center also offers several buildings in the republican style, which have also been declared national monuments.