City Tour By Night To Historic Downtown In Quito – Ecuador

From my hotel window in Quito I look towards the Historic Downtown of Quito, and it’s completely different and fascinating to remember what I saw in the city by night tour and what you see in the morning, in the City Tour of Quito - Ecuador. Each one of the illumination of churches, monuments, squares, streets and more, all come back to my head as a movie I will never forget.

All starts at 19H00 when I got into the tour offered by Gray Line Tours Ecuador, to begin with the city by night tour trough the main tourist places of Quito (Quito, Ecuador’s capital located on Latitude 0º over 9200 feet high).

Our first stop was in the "Voto Nacional" Basilica in Quito, imposing neo gothic construction which was blessed by the Pope Jean Paul II in his visit to Ecuador in 1985 Here you can admire its fantastic windows with images of the Ecuadorian flora and its gargoyles with shapes of endemic animals of Ecuador and whose beautiful illumination changes its tonalities from white to blue, then to red, then to green and finally to yellow ones.

We entered to the Historical Colonial downtown of Quito trough the "seven crosses" street, between very beautiful and classic little houses with balconies and flowers. This street is not only important for its 7 churches and the 7 crosses you find trough the road but also for the time of the Incas where this road connected the Temple of the sun (Panecillo Hill) to the Temple of the moon (San Juan). Once in the Historic downtown of Quito, we walk trough the Independence square, and after of admire its illuminations, the guide told me that to the west we can look the Carondelet Palace, where the president lives, to the south the cathedral of Quito, to the east the municipal palace and to the north the Bishop Palace. Right in the middle of the independence square is the independence monument.

In this tour I could realize the Colonial Area of Quito, is manly formed by churches, all of them spectacular even more when the illumination of each one emphasizes them. Most of them date from the XVI a.c. century and mainly built in barroc style, and although we couldn’t take a look inside of any church because of the time, the guide told us they are decorated with figures from the recognized school art of Quito and its altar pieces are covered with gold leaf, the entrances are made of volcanic stone extracted from the Pichincha Volcano sculpted by hand. Among the churches we visit are the Sagrario Church, (former chapel of the cathedral) the Compañia Church, the San Francisco square and church and some more.

Still shocked with all the lights, tradition, history, and beautiful landscapes we kept our ride to the Panecillo hill, this small hill (10.171 ft over the sea level) is located in the middle of Quito and divides the city in north and south. In this hill is locates the Virgin of Quito, with 45 meters high and stepping into a big snake, represents that she will take care of the city and all his habitants, that is why you can see it from almost every point of the city of Quito. From here we can enjoy of a great view of the North, Center and South part of Quito by Night.

This way we finalize our City by Night Tour of Quito, returned to mi hotel in Quito– Ecuador and I am still admiring Quito, its people, there is no doubt this is definitely a tour to recommend to all my friends.

Hugo Sandoval is chief editor of Grayline Ecuador. If you are planning to visit Ecuador please visit www.graylineecuador.com