I don't know if you know this but I have been living in Guatemala for the last year and have been loving it
. Since then imy husband and I have done as much as we can to get to know it which means a lot of fun family trips. But this time we didn't want to go too far so I called some of my Guatemalan friends and for some advice and they had the perfect thing.
They suggested something I had never thought of: A nice picnic in the afternoon in one of Antigua Guatemala's ruins. It sounded like a great idea so I ended up inviting them to come with us. Then there was the question, which ruins should we visit? That's because there are around 6 or 7. We ended up picking one called San Jeronimo located on one of Antigua's corners.
This is how the day went: After a regular Sunday morning we had lunch and I packed up my picnic set and off we went. We got there like 10 minutes after because everything in Antigua is less than15 minutes away in car. We settled up in one of its beautiful gardens and explored the place. This is not a very big monument but it is beautiful. There are lots of gardens and in some places you can still see murals from when it was a school.
I had a great time just chilling under a tree's shadow, enjoying the view of the gardens, eating some snacks and listening to birds that were passing by. On the other hand my son had a blast exploring and climbing everything he saw. Plus he had a little adventure partner with him that was just as excited to be there. This turned out to be a relaxing yet exciting family adventure not so far from home.
These ruins belong to what used to be a catholic school in the early 1700's and in the late 1700's it was turned into the Real Aduana. Years later it was destroyed by earthquakes and was never restored. It was until 1990's when the council for the protection of this colonial city started doing maintenance work to it. Oh, and I almost forgot I heard that this place is also rented for weddings and special events, how cool is that?