Deep within the Andes, a rough drive from Popayán, lies one of the pre-Colombian Americas’ most fascinating and least known sites - the hypogea of Tierradentro. Here mysterious chambers are scattered through a remote valley, plundered by grave robbers but only properly excavated in the 1930s… /1

Popayán, in Colombia’s Andean south west, might not be a UNESCO site (yet), but its series of whitewashed colonial mansions and ecclesiastical architecture is a delight after the heat of Cartagena - and with one very surprising monument tucked away on the outskirts… /1

I've just heard the terrible news that my friend - and friend of many here - Andrew West, @babelstone.co.uk, the incomparably brilliant Sinologist and Tangutologist passed away suddenly but peacefully on 10th July. 1/2

Within its massive walls, Cartagena thrived as one of the main trade entrepôts of the Caribbean, supporting a network of merchants, trade houses, and fabulous ecclesiastical architecture /1

Up from Mompós to Cartagena, the great fortress of the Spanish Americas - reinforced with some of the most extensive defences in the world following British and French attacks to become an unassailable bastion of Spanish presence in the Caribbean /1

Founded in 1537, Santa Cruz de Mompós is a beautifully preserved Colombian colonial town by the banks of a lazy Rio Magdalena, and is listed as UNESCO World Heritage for its almost unparalleled preservation of pre-independence historic fabric /1

Back in beautiful Bogota, where the colonial centre of La Candelaria - dating in some parts as far back as the mid-16th century - is looking beautiful in the intermittent sun and rain sweeping over the mountains /1

One of UNESCO’s grimmest world heritage sites, the Valongo wharf - buried under a growing Rio - was the principal arrival point for imperial Brazil’s massive slave trade. Between 1811 and 1831, when British blockades stopped the trade, up to a million slaves were landed here to be sold and bought.

Bom dia Rio! As one time capital of the grand Portuguese Empire - and home of the exiled Emperors - Rio de Janeiro has a charming collection of colonial remains, many of which are focused around the grand Praça XV de Novembro and the old shoreline /1

Six months into my time here, and I’m finally starting to dip my toes into São Paulo’s surprisingly good craft beer scene (here with a saison at Tank Brewpub in Pinheiros)

Back in Brazil and a lovely foray to the coast and the port of Santos. The island forming the city’s core, São Vicente, was discovered in 1502 and settled over the coming decades as Portugal stepped up trade with south eastern Brazil. /1

Denny Abbey, on a low island between Stretham and Waterbeach is Cambridgeshire Fens, is a fascinating palimpsest. Within this rambling medieval farmhouse, you see, are the entombed remains of a medieval abbey and, within that, an even older cruciform Templar church /1

While pretty, there’s not much to show that St Mary’s church in Walkern, near Stevenage, is pre-conquest - just some nice Norman features amid later additions… /1

Another truly wonderful church long on my bucket list, Holy Trinity Great Paxton, which underneath medieval additions has something almost unique - a preserved set of Saxon nave arcades, crossing arch, and even clerestory windows, from what originally must have been an important minster church /1

More awesome Saxon churches - this time in Norfolk, the county holding one of the greatest number of pre-conquest buildings in the country. We start at the beautifully sited St Mary’s in Cranwich, where a Saxon round tower rears over a Saxon nave (spot the quoins) and potentially chancel /1

A great day tracking down Saxon churches in rainy Lincolnshire! 🧵 We start off at St John the Baptist in Great Hale, where a later church is strapped to a functional Saxon tower - narrow windows in a rubble wall, one of which with a jamb made from a much eroded reused Saxon statue /1

Belém was the first European colony in the Amazon, planted by Portugal in 1616 above the Guajará Bay where the Amazon meets the Atlantic. Sited at the mouth of the tropical forest and nearly on the equator, it would grow hugely important in the trade of wood, food produce, and later rubber /1

Out onto the Suriname river to see some beautiful pink-bellied delphine friends…

Deep in the Surinamese jungle, reached only by boat or dirt road, lies the UNESCO World Heritage site of Jodensavanne. Founded in 1680s by Sephardic Jews seeking to cross the Atlantic to set up an effectively autonomous state, its astonishing ruins include the oldest synagogue in the Americas /1

Built by Dutch colonists in 1667 on the foundations of older British and French constructions, Fort Zeelandia is the oldest building in Paramaribo and the core from which modern day Suriname grew /1

Still in the Guyanas, but a completely different feel in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname - a former Dutch colony still populated by gentle wooden architecture and tree lined avenues /1

In the seventh century, it became a thing for women across the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to wear pieces of old Roman glass framed in gold settings as pendants on necklaces. Top left is a new find recorded this week on @findsorguk.bsky.social with others on PAS & the necklace from Sarre.

Waking up in Georgetown, Guyana, the only English speaking country in South America with some fascinating colonial relics - and also the fastest GDP growth on the planet /1

Fact check: Well, no. There’s no vast underground structure found beneath the #Pyramids of #Giza. trowelandpen.com/2025/03/26/n...

Short hop out of Santo Domingo to stop off at one of the weirdest city parks - a collection of flooded cenotes, dating back to the last ice age when sea level changes caused flooded limestone chambers to collapse. There’s even a boat inside!

This building is, with the exception of Norse projects on Greenland, the oldest cathedral in the Americas - a wellspring of congregational Christianity from which all others sprung. Begun in 1514 in European gothic style, the Basilica Cathedral of Santo Domingo is a beauty… 1/6

To see the oldest European footprint in the Americas, you can’t do much better than Santo Domingo - founded a mere four years after Columbus first set foot on Hispaniola. So I go stumbling around the colonial city to track down some of the oldest post-Colombian buildings on the continent… 1/7

Stepping out into the recôncavo, the hinterland around Salvador, once populated by brutal sugarcane plantations, indigenous villages, and quilombos of escaped slaves - to the beautiful riverine town of Cachoeira 1/9

Salvador’s oldest historic core is the Pelourinho, set around an old flogging post, and it’s here that some of its most impressive churches and monasteries still cluster today 1/9

Perched on a peninsula watching the Bay of All Saints, Salvador has good claim to be Brazil’s oldest city - as well as its original capital - and is stuffed to the gills with some of the best architectural heritage in the country. What a treat! 1/4

Despite only stopping off for a few hours post-carnival, Recife is a deeply intriguing place. One of the oldest cities in the Americas, the small Portuguese port was conquered by the Dutch in the early 17th century who built the largest and most advanced city on the continent 1/4

A week or so late, but finally sharing photos of an intense, magical experience attending Brazilian carnival in Olinda - a small colonial port in Pernambuco state, widely regarded as site of one of the most traditional carnivals in all of Brazil 1/7

Ending our Minas trip with Lake Pampulha in Belo Horizonte - a utopian modernist urban creation by architect Oscar Niemeyer, under oversight of then mayor and future president Juscelino Kubitscheck, which feels like an unlikely union of Tracy Island and Letchworth Garden City

Pretty São João del Rei, along the rail line from Tiridentes (and ultimately Belo Horizonte), with strings of colonial buildings leading up from the river to the Pelourinho ‘whipping square’ 1/2

When I said Tiridentes had escaped industrialisation, there’s one special exception - a narrow gauge steam railway linking it to the neighbouring town of San João del Rei. And we managed to nap a couple of tickets to ride it! 1/5

Tiradentes! Another beautiful Portuguese colonial town nestled in the mountains, renamed after the legendary assumptive liberator of Minas Gerais. Settled along the Rio das Mortes, the small but rich town has been left largely untouched by industrialisation 1/6

Striking out from Ouro Preto, we drive on to the Santuário do Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, another UNESCO World Heritage site designed by Aleijadinho with astonishing baroque style and rococo interior - reflecting, in the words of UNESCO, “the apex of Christian art in Latin America” 1/6

Nestled in gold-filled mountains, the UNESCO-listed city of Ouro Preto may be the most beautiful legacy of Portuguese colonisation of South America - a legacy built on staggering amounts of mineral wealth, prised from the ground with slave labour at incalculable human cost 1/14

On the outskirts of Mariana we took the chance to be lowered down into one of the region’s biggest gold mines - a two hundred year old series of tunnels connecting Mariana with its neighbour Ouro Preto, mined right up until the 1960s 1/3

Founded in 1696, Mariana is the oldest city in Minas Gerais - built at the vanguard of bandeirante settlement into the interior of Brazil - and today, some 330 years on, it’s still a stunning jewel of Portuguese colonial architecture 1/5

Beautiful views across the old town square of Catas Altas, high about Santuário, with the colonial church looking out to the ore rich mountains which fuelled Minas’ vast wealth and importance to the Portuguese crown

Our next stop on the Estrada Real is the remote Santuário do Caraça, a hermitage founded in the 18th century a day’s hike from the nearest town, and expanded with Brazil’s first gothic cathedral, deep in the Mineiras mountains, in the 1870s 1/5

Hello new followers, and thanks particularly to @goldkorn.bsky.social! Driving on from Diamantina along the Estrada Real, the Portuguese royal road from Minas Gerais to the coast, and stop off for lunch in scenic town of Serro - a colonial settlement rich on gold and now best known for its cheeses

As in many places in colonial Lusophonia, the greatest shows of wealth in Diamantina were reserved for the many churches spread throughout the colony - and in particular their striking interiors 1/7

Even today, Diamantina feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere - high up in broken crags six hours from Belo Horizonte. This enormously wealthy settlement - now UNESCO World Heritage - is owed to discovery of vast gold and diamond reserves, fuelling extravagant construction in the 18th century 1/4

#RomanFortThursday - The Limes Fortlet in Pohl (Germany), an authentic replica of a small Limes fort with a watchtower. It provided space for a centuria of 80 men. Fortlets on the Limes featured a circular V-shaped ditch and an earth wall of turf blocks. The interiors housed U-shaped barrack blocks.

On a bluff overlooking Montevideo, the Fortaleza General Artigas has watched m the bay in some form since 1781 - a bay continually fought over by the bickering Spanish and Portuguese empires 1/3

In genteel Uruguay for a few days, affording an opportunity to potter around Montevideo and enjoy its excellent late 19th and early 20th century architecture 1/3

Old Panama, founded in 1519 by over-landing Spanish adventurers, was the first European settlement to be built on the Pacific. It flourished for over 150 years - until disaster destroyed it, drove out its citizens, and left it to be consumed by the jungle… 1/8

Long before the canal, Panama was a jewel in the Spanish Empire’s crown - arbitrating trade in gold from the Americas’ west coasts back across the isthmus and on to Europe. Casco Viejo, the old town of Panama City, remains as a gorgeous - UNESCO World Heritage site - testament to the period 1/7