Arequipa - Santa Catalina Monastery Monasterio de Santa Catalina

Monasterio de Santa Catalina is a huge religious complex built entirely of sillar stone. It is the highlight of Arequipa and one of the most impressive colonial religious sites in Peru. This monastery is essentially a small town, covering 20,000 square meters, complete with a central plaza, church, houses, streets, and a cemetery.

During the 1600s and 1700s the Monasterio de Santa Catalina housed up to 175 nuns. At that time it was customary for the second born daughter in upper class families to enter the nunnery. Once in the monastery these girls of privilege continued to live life as they knew it, with servants or slaves, on site entertainment, and parties, until the pope heard of these activities and put a stop to it in the early 1870s.

The Monasterio de Santa Catalina has also been home to widows, homeless women, and single mothers.