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Coro, officially Santa Ana de Coro, is the capital of Falcón state in northwestern Venezuela. It lies on a coastal plain at the foot of the Paraguaná Peninsula, between the sand dunes of Médanos de Coro and the Sierra de Coro. Founded on 26 July 1527 by Juan de Ampíes, it is the second-oldest city in Venezuela after Cumaná.
From 1528 to 1546 Coro was run by the German Welser bankers of Augsburg as Neu-Augsburg, and it later served as the first capital of the Spanish province of Venezuela. In 1531 it became the seat of the first diocese in South America. Its earthen colonial buildings, which blend Spanish Mudéjar style with Dutch touches from nearby Curaçao, led UNESCO to list Coro and its port of La Vela as a World Heritage Site in 1993.
Visitors walk its cobbled streets past colonial churches and mansions turned into museums, then head out to the great dunes on the edge of town, the beaches of Paraguaná and the green, forested slopes of Cerro Santa Ana.
Coro Cathedral, the Basilica of Santa Ana, was begun in 1531, the year Pope Clement VII created the diocese of Coro, the first in South America, and was completed around 1634. It has three naves, and its sturdy bell tower was already standing by 1620, making it one of Venezuela's oldest churches.
The Iglesia de San Francisco de Coro is a three-nave church begun in the 16th century, burned by pirates in 1620 and later rebuilt, with a neo-Gothic tower of 1900 that rises 50 m above the old town. The Franciscan convent beside it now houses the Diocesan Museum, with colonial religious art.
San Clemente Church grew from a chapel built by Coro's founder Juan de Ampíes in the 16th century, though the present building dates from the 18th century. Laid out as a cross with each arm pointing to a compass point, it is one of the few cross-shaped colonial buildings in Venezuela.
The Casa de las Ventanas de Hierro is a grand colonial mansion in Coro built by José Francisco Garcés de la Colina, with a doorway more than 8 m high. It takes its name from its tall windows guarded by wrought-iron grilles brought from Seville, and it is among the best-known houses in town.
The Balcón de los Arcaya is a colonial house built around 1725 and named after the Arcaya family, who owned it from the mid-19th century. It now holds the José María Cruxent Museum of archaeology and art, and one of its courtyards keeps a cují tree said to be over 400 years old, ringed by cacti.
The Balcón de Bolívar is a colonial mansion where Simón Bolívar stayed on 23 December 1826 and is said to have greeted the crowd from its balcony. Since 1988 it has been home to the Coro Art Museum, which has staged more than 200 exhibitions along with concerts, talks and art workshops.
The Casa del Sol is one of the oldest colonial houses in Coro, built in the 17th century on the corner of Zamora and Federación streets, across from San Clemente Church. It is named after the sun above its main door, and it once belonged to José Garcés, builder of the Casa de las Ventanas de Hierro.
The Jewish Cemetery of Coro is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in the Americas, opened in 1832 by a Sephardic family that had come to Coro from Curaçao. Its fine tombs and mausoleums recall the merchants who traded with the Dutch islands, and the poet Elías David Curiel is buried here.
Médanos de Coro National Park, created in 1974, protects a sea of sand dunes on the isthmus between Coro and the Paraguaná Peninsula. Shaped constantly by the wind, the dunes reach up to 40 m high over an area of about 5 by 30 km, and the park is easily reached by bus or taxi from Coro.
La Vela de Coro is the old port of Coro, joined to the city and part of the same UNESCO World Heritage listing. Its old houses show the influence of the nearby Dutch islands, and every 28 December its streets fill with brightly costumed revelers for the famous festival of the Locos de La Vela.
Cerro Santa Ana is an 830 m mountain that rises from the flat, dry Paraguaná Peninsula north of Coro, protected as a natural monument since 1972. Trails climb from thorny scrub to a damp forest of tall trees, mosses and lichens near the summit, and on clear days Aruba and Curaçao can be seen.
Adícora is a small fishing village on the northeastern coast of the Paraguaná Peninsula, about 24 km south of Aruba. Its shallow beach is sheltered by reefs, and its strong, steady winds have made it an international center for kitesurfing and windsurfing and fishing boats still work its shore.
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Log in to add photosPhoto: Juan Carlo Castillo Ortega, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
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