Accommodation
La Posada de San AntonioVilla de Leyva, Colombia
This charming historic hotel is conveniently located on a corner of a quiet square, just one block from Villa de Leyva’s impressive Plaza Mayor. The 24-room hotel, which was has been converted out of three colonial houses, oozes character and history and is set around a central courtyard. We particularly loved the little chapel, which is just off the courtyard and can be used for weddings.
The reception area doubles as a small art gallery displaying paintings for sale by local artists. Other objets d’art and artefacts are found throughout the hotel. There is a small but good restaurant with open kitchen and a living room with an open fire for chilly evenings. The hotel also boasts a small spa with Jacuzzi.
This is the best hotel for exploring Villa de Leyva, one of the few towns in Colombia that preserved all of its colonial architecture and where many houses date from the 16th century. The town’s central, cobbled square, Plaza Major is the largest in Colombia at 14,000 square metres. It’s also a greaty paleontological site with many fossils from the Cretaceous era. The most famous of these is El Fósil, a near complete Kronosauras boyacensis, discovered in 1977 and housed in a museum 3 miles to the West of the town in the original spot where it was excavated. It’s also well worth making the climb up to the “sogrado curazon” mirador (the Jesus statue up on the hillside) for the view.