Cuenca Museums, Traditional Markets (Mercado 10 de Agosto) & Tranvía Guide

Beyond its cathedrals and Inca ruins, Cuenca is a living university and arts city where international contemporary art biennials share the same colonial streets as covered produce markets and herbal healers. Here is how to combine the city's civic museums, traditional markets, and light-rail line into a rewarding half-day walk.

1. Riding the Tranvía de Cuenca & Visiting Two Essential Museums

• The Electric Tranvía de Cuenca (Gran Colombia & Mariscal Lamar Axis): Inaugurated in May 2020, Cuenca's sleek five-car French Alstom Citadis trams glide silently across 20.4 kilometres (27 stations) from the southern Rio Tarqui district through the heart of the UNESCO grid to the bus terminal and airport. Remarkably, throughout the historic centre along Calles Gran Colombia and Mariscal Lamar, the trams run without overhead catenary wires, drawing power from an underground ground-level rail strip so that views of the colonial balconies and church towers remain completely unobstructed.
• Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno (MMAM, Calle Mariscal Sucre & Coronel Talbot): Stepping off at the San Sebastián tram stop brings you to the blue-and-white courtyards of the 1876 Casa de la Temperancia. Today this tranquil municipal museum serves as the flagship venue of the Bienal Internacional de Cuenca (one of Latin America's premier contemporary art biennials, founded in 1987) and offers free admission to rotating Latin American sculpture and painting exhibitions.
• Museo Remigio Crespo Toral (Calle Larga 7-07, El Barranco): Back on Calle Larga overlooking the Río Tomebamba, tour the five-level early-20th-century mansion of poet and diplomat Remigio Crespo Toral, featuring French wallpapered salons, colonial portraits, and the 1557 municipal foundation books of Cuenca.

2. Mercado 10 de Agosto (Herbal Limpias & Fruit Halls) & San Blas

• Mercado 10 de Agosto (Calle Larga & General Torres): Two blocks west of Museo Remigio Crespo Toral stands Cuenca's historic covered market. Downstairs, pyramids of passionfruit (maracuyá and taxo), cherimoya, tree tomatoes, and babaco fill the stalls under stained-glass murals; upstairs sit the chancho hornado and juice counters. Every Tuesday and Friday morning, indigenous women healers (limpiadoras) gather on the lower terrace to perform traditional Andean energetic cleansings (limpias), brushing visitors from head to toe with bundles of rue, rosemary, chamomile, nettle, and carnations to banish stress and mal aire.
• Iglesia de San Blas & Mercado 9 de Octubre: Finish at the eastern gate of the historic centre at pink-marble Iglesia de San Blas and nearby Plaza Cívica / Mercado 9 de Octubre.