Quito

People lived in the valley long before any Spanish town. The Quitu, and the Cara people who joined them, farmed the highland basin and traded between the coast and the Amazon. In the late 15th century the Inca pushed north from Cusco and took the region. Quito became a northern centre of the empire, and its rulers are said to have made it a second capital, although few of their buildings survive under the modern streets.

The conquest was violent and quick. When Huayna Capac died around 1527 his sons Huáscar and Atahualpa fought over the empire, and Atahualpa, whose base was in the north, won just as Francisco Pizarro landed on the coast. In 1534 the Inca general Rumiñahui, seeing that the Spanish were about to take Quito, is said to have burned the city and hidden its treasure rather than hand it over. The Spanish captain Sebastián de Benalcázar refounded it as San Francisco de Quito on 6 December 1534, the date the city now celebrates every year.

Under Spain, Quito became the seat of a Real Audiencia in 1563, a high court whose territory reached from Colombia to northern Peru. Churches and convents rose fast, run by Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Jesuits and others, and each order drew local carvers and painters into its workshops. Earthquakes and eruptions regularly knocked buildings down; the city rebuilt in the same plan each time.

On 10 August 1809 a group of Quito’s leading citizens deposed the Spanish president and proclaimed a junta. It lasted less than two months, and on 2 August 1810 troops killed many of the imprisoned leaders. The final victory came on 24 May 1822 at the Battle of Pichincha, when Antonio José de Sucre’s army defeated the royalists on the slopes above the city. Quito joined Gran Colombia, and in 1830 became the capital of the new Republic of Ecuador.

In the 20th century the railway arrived in 1908, the oil boom of the 1970s brought a new population from the countryside, and in 1978 the Historic Centre became one of the first places on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The dollar replaced the sucre in 2000 after a banking crisis. The new airport at Tababela opened in 2013, and Metro line 1 began service in December 2023.

Quito is a long, thin city, about 40 km from south to north and only a few kilometres wide, squeezed between the slopes of Pichincha to the west and the Machángara valley to the east. The layers of its history are laid out along that line, so moving north means moving forward in time.

The Historic Centre is the colonial core. Its streets follow the Spanish grid, but the ground is steep, so the grid is a tilted one: plazas are set on terraces and streets run up in flights of steps. The main plazas are Plaza Grande, with the palace and cathedral, and Plaza San Francisco, with the largest church complex. Calle La Ronda, a narrow street of balconies and workshops, was restored in the early 2000s from a run-down lane into a craft and music street, and it now gives visitors a pocket version of the old town.

In the early 20th century the wealthy started to leave the old town for the flatter land to the north. La Mariscal, named for Marshal Sucre, was laid out as a garden suburb of villas and mansions. From the 1970s and 1980s it turned into a district of hostels, cafés and restaurants, and Plaza Foch, at its heart, became a nightlife square. Many old villas still stand between the newer hotels, so a walk down its side streets is a small architecture lesson.

Further north La Carolina grew around the large park of the same name, on land that was once a hacienda. It is the modern business centre, with towers, malls and the botanical garden inside the park. On the eastern side of the valley, Guápulo hangs on a steep ridge above the road to Cumbayá and the eastern valleys. Its 18th-century sanctuary sits at the foot of a flight of stone stairs, and a lane of small houses, cafés and artists’ studios climbs the slope.

Beyond these lie the suburbs, and the valleys of Cumbayá and Tumbaco, which have become the commuter towns for the professional class. To the south are the working-class neighbourhoods, the bus terminal at Quitumbe and the industrial edge of the city. A visitor who stays inside the four central clusters sees only a fraction of the capital, but it is the fraction that makes Quito’s reputation.

Quito’s churches are the reason it was listed by UNESCO, and the reason is inside them as much as on their facades. Franciscans, Jesuits and Augustinians brought European baroque and plateresque styles, and local indigenous and mestizo craftsmen carved, gilded and painted them. What came out is now called the Quito School, an art tradition of the 16th to 18th centuries in which European forms carry Andean faces, plants and colours.

San Francisco was begun in the 1530s and worked on for more than a century. Its plaza is one of the largest in the Historic Centre, and the church holds a much-copied 18th-century carving of the Virgin of Quito by Bernardo de Legarda, in which the Virgin has wings and steps on a serpent. That image became the model for the 41 metre aluminium statue on El Panecillo, which was set up in 1976.

La Compañía de Jesús is the most opulent. Construction began in 1605 and continued for about 160 years, and the interior is covered in gold leaf over carved wood, so that nave, pillars and altars form one continuous surface of gilded ornament. Guides often quote several tonnes of gold, a figure that has never been verified; what is certain is the effect. Photography is banned inside, which pushes visitors to look properly.

Three names recur in the art of the period. Miguel de Santiago painted large religious scenes for the convents. Manuel Chili, known as Caspicara, an indigenous sculptor, made delicate wooden figures with painted flesh tones. Legarda worked in wood and silver. Their works are spread across churches and museums such as the Casa del Alabado, which shows the pre-Columbian art that came before them, and the Museo Nacional.

Neo-Gothic arrived later. The Basílica del Voto Nacional, begun in 1892 and finished in stages during the 20th century, is a large grey church whose gargoyles are Ecuadorian animals such as iguanas, armadillos and tortoises. You can climb into the towers by ladders and narrow walkways with open drops, a rare chance in a city of locked church belfries. The contrast between the flamboyant gilding of La Compañía and the cold stone of the Basílica shows how the tastes of two eras sit side by side in the same skyline.

Quito lies about 25 km south of the equator, and 2,850 m above sea level, which is why the days are almost the same length all year and why the climate is cool. The city sits between two volcanic ranges, and on clear mornings the tops of Cotopaxi (5,897 m), Cayambe (5,790 m) and Antisana can be seen on the horizon. The peak of Chimborazo (6,263 m), south of the capital, is the point on Earth’s surface farthest from the centre of the planet because the planet bulges at the equator.

Pichincha, the volcano just above the city, has two main summits, Rucu Pichincha and Guagua Pichincha. Guagua erupted in 1999 and covered Quito in a layer of ash, a reminder that the city is close to active volcanoes. The TelefériQo cable car climbs the slope to about 4,000 m, where the view stretches across the valley, and the path to the summit of Rucu Pichincha starts from its top station. Do that walk only after several days of acclimatisation.

Altitude shapes every plan. The air holds roughly 30 per cent less oxygen than at sea level, so a flat walk feels like a climb. Headache, nausea and poor sleep in the first day or two are common. The standard advice is to keep day 1 light, drink water, avoid alcohol, and add the high trips, such as Cotopaxi, Quilotoa or the summit walks, only after two or three nights in the city.

The equator gives the country its name and its best-known monument. In 1736 a French scientific expedition led by Charles Marie de La Condamine and including Pierre Bouguer and Louis Godin came to measure the length of a degree of latitude near the equator, to settle a debate about the shape of the Earth. Their results confirmed that the planet is slightly flattened at the poles. The monument at Mitad del Mundo, opened in 1979, marks their line, but modern GPS puts the true equator a few hundred metres away, which a nearby site museum acknowledges.

The mountains also set the weather. Mornings are usually clear and cold. Cloud builds over Pichincha around midday, and in the wet months from October to May a shower often arrives in the afternoon. From June to September the sky is clearer and the wind is stronger, and the volcanoes are seen more often. The sun, meanwhile, is strong in every season, so sun cream is as important as a warm jacket.

Highland cooking is built on crops that the Andes gave the world. The potato, corn in many varieties, quinoa, beans and squash were grown here long before any Spanish arrival, and hundreds of potato types are still grown in the valleys. Spanish settlers added pork, cattle, cheese, onions and wheat, and the result is the heavy, warming food that suits a cold, thin-aired city.

Soups come first. Locro de papa is a thick potato and cheese soup, usually served with avocado. Yahuarlocro, a blood-sausage and tripe stew, is for those who like offal. Hornado, whole pig roasted slowly and served with mote (boiled hominy), llapingachos (fried potato cakes) and a side of pickled onion, is the weekend treat, best eaten at market stalls. Fritada, chunks of fried pork, is a heavier version. Cuy, roasted guinea pig, is a celebration dish and a tourist test.

Bread and snacks fill the gaps. Empanadas de viento are large puffed cheese pastries dusted with sugar. Humitas and quimbolitos are steamed cakes of fresh corn and of flour. Bolones are plantain or potato balls filled with cheese or pork. Fruits from the coast and the Amazon reach the city’s markets, and the juices of naranjilla, tree tomato, blackberry, passion fruit and soursop make a meal on their own.

Two seasonal dishes mark the calendar. In the days around 2 November, the Day of the Dead, families drink colada morada, a thick purple drink of blackberries, corn flour and spices, and eat guaguas de pan, bread shaped like babies and stuffed with jam. In Holy Week they eat fanesca, a soup of twelve grains and beans with salted cod and hard-boiled eggs, made by each family in its own way and served with much ceremony.

Cold weather has its own drinks and sweets. Canelazo, hot sugar-cane spirit with cinnamon, is sold on the street at night. Helado de paila, ice cream churned by hand in a copper pan set on ice, comes from the northern highlands and has shops in the Historic Centre. Ecuador is also a real producer of cacao and coffee, and a growing number of small chocolate makers in Quito offer workshops.

Quito’s calendar mixes Catholic ceremony, Andean tradition and civic pride. Its main civic festival is Fiestas de Quito, in the first week of December, marking the Spanish founding on 6 December 1534. There are concerts, parades, bullfights and street parties, and the neighbourhoods paint and decorate their streets. It is a loud, festive time and hotel prices rise.

Holy Week is the most solemn. On Good Friday the Jesús del Gran Poder procession winds through the Historic Centre, with thousands of cucuruchos, penitents in purple robes and pointed hoods, who carry crosses and chant. Onlookers eat fanesca, and the streets fill early. Palm Sunday brings a blessing of palms around San Francisco. If you plan to visit during Holy Week, book early and use cars, because roads close from morning.

The Andean calendar has its own moments. Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun, is held around the June solstice in indigenous communities near Quito and Otavalo, with music, dancing and processions. It is a celebration of the harvest and of the sun as a giver of life, and visitors are welcome in some communities if they ask and behave respectfully. Corpus Christi, in June, has masked dancers in several highland towns.

The end of the year brings its own customs. On 24 December the Pase del Niño, a procession of costumed children and families, moves through the old town. On 31 December people build effigies of the old year, called años viejos, which are set on fire at midnight. Men dressed as widows stop cars to ask for small coins, and the burning is a mix of humour and farewell.

On 2 November, the Day of the Dead, families visit graves with food and flowers. On 24 May and 10 August, national holidays mark independence, and museums often offer free entry and events. The pace of daily life slows for these days, so a visitor planning a tight schedule should check whether their dates fall on one and plan accordingly. Carnival, held before Lent, is a water fight rather than a costume parade in Quito.

Quito lives on two clocks. The old town wakes early: church bells before 07:00, market stalls open by 06:00, and a lunch rush at midday when offices empty into set-lunch restaurants. By 18:00 the sun is down all year, and the Historic Centre thins fast. The north of the city, in La Mariscal and around Plaza Foch, has a second evening life, which continues on weekend nights until 02:00.

The dollar makes prices easy for a foreign visitor, but it also means that small change is scarce and a $50 or $100 note can be hard to break. Restaurants add service and tax to bills, and many places take only cash. Locals often say ‘de una’ for ‘sure, right away’ and ‘ñaño’ for a friend or sibling, a word from Quichua. A cold morning brings out ‘achachay’, an exclamation borrowed from the same language.

Ecuador is a country of large indigenous populations, and Quichua-speaking communities live in the highlands around the capital. In the city, indigenous vendors sell fruit and textiles, and the Otavalo market, two hours north, is a major centre. Language, dress and craft differ between villages, and a respectful visitor asks before photographing people.

The pace of change is quick. Metro line 1 shortened the trip across the city in late 2023, and new shops, cafés and craft-beer bars are opening in La Floresta and Guápulo. On Sundays the main avenues close to cars for a ciclopaseo, a weekly bicycle ride that many families join. Traffic remains heavy on other days, and the ‘pico y placa’ scheme restricts cars by plate number on weekdays.

Security is a concern in Ecuador, and the country has had periods of states of exception and curfews in recent years. Most visitors in Quito have uneventful trips, but the common-sense rules matter: use a booked car after dark, keep a phone out of sight on the street, do not leave a drink unattended, and check your government’s travel advice before and during the visit. The reward for these habits is a long, calm day in one of the most photogenic old towns in South America.