Santa Catalina Convent


The convent of Santa Catalina is located at 301 St. Catherine Street, three blocks from the Plaza de Armas of Arequipa.


This religious resort was founded in 1579, was built as a small city, was extended in the seventeenth century. The convent occupies an area of approximately twenty thousand square meters and its distribution is similar to that which took the first neighborhoods of the city of Arequipa. The Convento de Santa Catalina is probably one of the largest monasteries in the world. 450 nuns have lived here for over 400 years, completely separated from the world. The people of Arequipa were unaware of what was happening inside the compound, many fantastic stories circulating about this convent. Santa Catalina was wrapped in an aura of mystery until 1970, when a large part of the convent opened its doors to the public.



The north of the resort area is still inhabited by nuns. By visiting the site you can find the rest of the monastery freely. You can still breathe the atmosphere of the dark Middle Ages to visit the room, the room where the nuns make washing and a comprehensive library with amazing collections of books, unfortunately this library is not always open to the public.

Visitors can stay all day and can enter inhabited area of the convent, which gives a lot of inspiration.

One of the cloisters belonged to Blessed Sister of the Angels Monteagudo, who was beatified in the visit to Peru of Pope John Paul II, in 1985, also in the gallery you can find works of the Cuzco school.


Visiting hours are Monday through Sunday, the schedule is from 9:00 am - 17:00 pm in high season this time varies from 8:00 am to 17 and Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

General admission is S /. 30.00 soles.

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RUC: 20491103753

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