Church of San FranciscoIglesia de San Francisco

Church of San Francisco, founded in 1557 at the center of a Franciscan complex, is Bogotá’s oldest surviving church and a rare witness to the city’s earliest colonial life. Rebuilt after the 1785 earthquake, its austere stone façade opens to an interior of coffered Mudéjar woodwork and gilded cedar altarpieces, crowned by the monumental main retablo of 1593–1611. Surrounded by the downtown rush, it remains a working parish and a touchstone of Colombian faith and craftsmanship.