Villa de Leyva

Villa de Leyva was founded in 1572 by order of the Spanish Crown as an administrative and religious centre for the sparsely populated Altiplano Cundiboyacense, and grew around a Main Plaza that at 14,000 square metres is one of the largest entirely cobblestone squares in South America, ringed by whitewashed colonial buildings with red-tile roofs and tall wooden balconies designed in the Andalusian style brought by settlers from southern Spain.

The plaza has been declared a national monument and its surroundings have been protected from modern development, so there are no high-rise buildings, no parking lots and no commercial signage within the historic zone, an authenticity rare in colonial towns that have been absorbed into modern urban areas throughout Latin America. The protection has been enforced since 1959 when the Colombian government first designated the town a heritage site, and it remains one of the best-preserved examples of Spanish colonial town planning in the Americas.

The Casa de la Cueva, at the northeast corner of the plaza, houses a small ethnographic museum showing how the town was settled by Spanish colonists and the region's pre-Columbian history, with artefacts from the Muisca culture that inhabited the plateau long before the arrival of Europeans. The nearby Convento de San Ignacio, built by the Jesuits in the early 17th century, preserves original frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in a style that blends European religious imagery with Andean landscape elements.

The dry climate of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, at 2,100 metres above sea level, has helped preserve the whitewash on the building facades and the mud brick in the surrounding countryside, giving the landscape an austere golden character different from the lush green of the coffee region. The plateau experiences very little rainfall between December and March, making these the driest months but also the clearest for photography, with intense blue skies and sharp shadows that emphasise the geometry of the colonial architecture.

Near the town are the Pozos de Niz, a series of natural swimming holes formed in a limestone riverbed where visitors wade upstream through turquoise water between July and September when the water level is lowest and the current is gentle. The Pozos are fed by underground springs that maintain a constant year-round temperature and have become a popular destination for both local and foreign visitors seeking relief from the heat of the lower-altitude regions of Colombia.

Each year on 21 December Villa de Leyva holds a Festival of Lights during which every window, balcony and rooftop of the colonial buildings around the plaza is illuminated with thousands of candles, creating a glowing square that has become one of Colombia's most photographed cultural events. The tradition began in the colonial period as a religious observance marking the approach of the summer solstice and has evolved into a secular festival that draws visitors from across Colombia who come to watch the candle-lighting ceremony and participate in the subsequent celebrations that fill the town for several days.

The 14,000-square-metre entirely cobblestone Main Plaza is one of the largest and best-preserved colonial plazas in South America, ringed by whitewashed buildings unchanged since the 16th century.

The town has been protected as a national monument since 1959, making it one of the most authentic colonial urban environments in Latin America.

The surrounding Altiplano Cundiboyacense offers Pozos de Niz natural swimming holes, Muisca archaeological sites and the annual December Festival of Lights — a dramatic candle-lit ceremony in the plaza.