Leon, Nicaragua

Leon, Nicaragua

After enjoying five days on deserted beaches, we made our way to steamy Leon, a culturally rich city with a lot of Spanish colonial architecture and civil war history.

Churches of Leon

The Cathedral of Leon, also known as the Real e Insigne Basilica Catedral de León Nicaragua, is the largest in Central American. The Cathedral's construction lasted between 1747 and 1814. Seven tunnels start under the church and lead to the other churches in the city.

Iglesia de La Recoleccion

Iglesia de la Merced

Iglesia de El Calvario

Around town

The central park in front of the Cathedral

Philip wants one for erranding in the southside.

Raspado - street vendors push small wooden carts containing blocks of ice.  They hand-shave the block with a rasp and then top it with a sticky fruit syrups. Ours was tamarind flavored...YUM!

Garden in the Centro de Arte Fundación Ortiz Gurdián...it was the only thing they would let us take a picture of...

Rigoberto López Pérez, disguised as a waiter, entered the house above that was hosting the nomination party and fatally wounded the dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

Anastasio Somoza Garcia was only thirty-four years old when the United States marines gave him command of the National Guard. As the head of the National Guard, Somoza was the one to order the execution of the revolutionary leader Augusto Sandino in 1934. “By 1936, Somoza's power has risen to heights sure of stability so he plotted to overthrow Juan Sacasa the elected president” After the overthrow of Juan Sacasa, Somoza and his family would rule for over forty years, creating the Somoza dynasty. Somoza enjoyed the support that the United States gave him, which in turn made a lot of Nicaraguan citizens unsettled as once again the U.S. had intervention in the Nicaraguan government. During his lifetime Somoza was only president for nineteen years, because of his many political enemies, Somoza had personal bodyguards with him wherever he went. “Nevertheless, on September 21, 1956, while attending a PLN party in León to celebrate his nomination for the presidency, Somoza Garcia was fatally wounded by Rigoberto López Pérez, a twenty-seven year old Nicaraguan poet who had managed to pass through Somoza García's security. The dictator was flown to the Panama Canal Zone, where he died eight days later. Rigoberto Lopez would later be seen as a national hero by the Sandinista government.