Considered a top retirement destination for people all over the world, Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador and a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site which lies in a valley at about 2500 m. It has the feeling of a small mountain town in Switzerland and the look of a Spanish city with its colonial architecture.

We visited some of its amazing cathedrals, but one of them impressed us with its story: women monks live closed inside the church and never get out; they enter the monastery very young (around 12 years old) and get out only after their death; they eat, sleep, get some education from older monks and pray their whole life and the only interaction with the outside world is via a small hole where they receive food in exchange for prayers… we’ve never heard of such a drastic monasticism…it’s kind of sad.

We continued with a visit to the local market and to a hat workshop afterwards. We saw the traditional hat manufacturing process and of course we tried a dozen of hats.

Clean and quiet, safe, with amazing architecture and beautiful sceneries especially on the banks of Tomebamba river, Cuenca is for sure competing with little towns in Switzerland or Spain. But we still have time to figure out our retirement location…