Ecuador Highlights

Quito's Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the best-preserved colonial city centre in Latin America — a remarkable ensemble of 16th–18th century Spanish colonial architecture set at 2,850 metres altitude in a valley between Andean volcanoes. The Plaza Grande (the main square), the Compañía de Jesús church (the most ornate Baroque church in the Americas), the Monastery of San Francisco, and the Basílica del Voto Nacional (the largest neo-Gothic church in the Americas) make Quito's old town one of the most architecturally extraordinary in the world.

The Avenue of the Volcanoes is a 400km corridor through the Ecuadorian Andes flanked by some of the world's highest active volcanoes — Cotopaxi (5,897m, one of the world's highest active volcanoes), Chimborazo (6,268m, the farthest point from the earth's centre), Tungurahua, and a dozen others. The name was coined by Alexander von Humboldt in 1802, and the landscape he described — snow-capped peaks rising above green valleys, indigenous markets, and colonial towns — is largely unchanged. The town of Baños, at the foot of Tungurahua, is the adventure sports capital of Ecuador.