The plaza the Spanish laid out on March 10, 1543, when they founded their capital here. For 233 years this was the most powerful ground between Mexico and Lima, with the cathedral, government palace, city hall, and merchants each holding one side. Most of the buildings changed over the centuries; the grid never did. At its center is the Fuente de las Sirenas, the mermaid fountain carved in 1737 by Diego de Porres, the architect whose work you will meet again and again on this walk.

One building, two halves: the working parish of San José in front, and behind it the open-air ruins of the original cathedral, its vaults toppled by the 1773 earthquake.

The arcade Spain ruled all Central America from. After the 1773 quake the Captain General fled in 39 days and power never returned. Today the national art museum.

The butter-yellow arch of 1694, built so cloistered nuns could cross the street unseen. Now Guatemala's most photographed spot, with Volcán de Agua framed behind it.

One of the most ornate baroque facades in the Americas. Built quake-wise after 1717, the church survived 1773; its older convent behind, now open ruins, did not.

Antigua's last colonial convent (1736), run by an order that took nuns without a dowry. Its highlight: the Torre de Retiro, a round tower of tiny cells, often all yours.

A grand Dominican monastery flattened in 1773, left open to the sky for 200 years, then wrapped inside a hotel in 1989. Walk the crypt, cloisters, and small museums.

Not a palace but 22 public washing basins from the 1850s. After the capital left, the people too poor to follow stayed and kept the city alive. Their monument.

The one still-living institution on the walk. Begun in 1654 behind a cheerful yellow church, it still runs a hospital, elderly home, and school, serving thousands a year.

The city's most beloved church, and the tomb of Hermano Pedro: a penniless Canary Islander who founded the first religious order in the Americas and became its first saint in 2002.