Colombia's whitewashed time capsule — one of South America's largest colonial plazas, fossilised sea creatures in the surrounding desert, and no cars on cobblestone
Villa de Leyva is a colonial town of 15,000 in the Boyacá Department of Colombia, 40km from Tunja — declared a National Monument in 1954 and frozen almost entirely in its 16th-century colonial form: whitewashed walls, terracotta roofs, and cobblestone streets that are closed to motor vehicles. Its Plaza Mayor is one of the largest colonial plazas in the Americas — a vast cobblestone expanse ringed by arcaded buildings that has served as the setting for films and is the centrepiece of one of Colombia's most atmospheric colonial towns. The surrounding arid valley hides fossil beds with plesiosa…
Villa de Leyva was founded in 1572 as a retreat town for colonial administrators escaping the cold of Santa Fe de Bogotá — a high-altitude colonial rest stop that attracted prominent figures including Antonio Nariño (one of Colombia's founding fathers and precursor of independence) and the scientist Francisco José de Caldas. The town's extraordinary state of preservation stems partly from its decline after independence: bypassed by 19th-century development, it retained its colonial fabric simply because there was no economic impetus to replace it. National Monument status in 1954 froze the re…