Nicaragua Trip Day 4

Our fourth day in Nicaragua was full of interesting visits. We started the day walking around the town, with me taking lots of pictures of the beautiful doors and entryways to the old colonial homes all around León. We visited the cathedral, which was gorgeous on the inside, and had a very pretty garden out front-which was being renovated, but still was quite nice. We visited a few other old churches (1700s) which for me is always exciting because that is something that can't be found in Des Moines. Obviously in Europe, old churches all over the place, but it's interesting to see them in the Americas. Of course, they can be found on the East Coast as well-but, walking down streets where half the buildings and all the churches were built over 250 years ago is still an amazing experience for me. We toured an art museum, which was quite impressive-considering it was in León, Nicaragua. Certainly, it was an important colonial city-but also a city that was torn apart during Nicaragua's Civil War. Additionally, I've been the Costa Rican national museum in San José a few times, and haven't been very impressed by its collections. This museum certainly had good variety and some very good pieces. 

We continued our day with a tour of the Museum of the Revolution, one of the highlights of the trip. We had read up on some of Nicaragua's 20th century history to be more informed-but still learned lots at the museum. León was the city of the revolution, Granada and Managua being cities more controlled by the conservative factions aligned with the Samoza dynasty. Thus, the Museum of the Revolution is in León, and León is filled with murals to martyrs in the revolution and FSLN flags as well. Our guide was a man originally from Managua, who had come to León during the revolution-and fought. We learned all about the seeds of revolution starting in the late 1950s with agrarian and student movements and then growing into a full blown revolution in the 1970s, especially following a devastating earthquake in Managua in 1972. Our tour guide, and most of the people working at the museum, it seemed, were former revolutionary (Sandinista) soldiers, so the museum definitely had a certain subjective tone-but was generally a good museum-with plenty of old newspaper articles and photos. 

(the cathedral of León, with the city's namesake in front)

We spent the rest of the day strolling the gorgeous streets of León, taking in all of the murals honoring martyrs of the revolution and student movements, visiting the cathedral, and enjoying views of volcanoes at the end of narrow street. We had dinner at a delightful restaurant called El Sesteo that Barton had read about, it had photos of past poets and revolutionary leaders on the wall, and seemed to be where some revolutionary plans might have been hashed out. It was almost a private dinner, as it was just the four of us for most of our meal. But-that meant most excellent service, the food was quite nice and the ambience delightful. 

(an afternoon chat in front of murals honoring revolutionaries)