One of my all time favorite cities in the world is Antigua, Guatemala. I could spend days walking its picturesque cobblestone streets colored in rainbow hues and loaded with history. Every building has a story to tell which can be found by looking into the details of the layers of paint and crumbled buildings sprouting with plants.
Follow me along and look carefully at the details of a street in lovely Antigua….
“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”
-Pedro Calderon de la Barca
It is hard to visit Guatemala and not become completely entranced by her greenery. The color green can be found in every place you look- from the verdant terraced farmlands, to the lush fertile peaks of the volcanoes. After a long, cold colorless winter arriving in Green Guatemala almost hurts your eyes and reminds me of the constant rebirth and cycle of life.
For centuries, the color purple has played a significant role in the Christian religion during Holy Week surrounding Easter. The color purple along with red, black, white and gold, has an important symbolic meaning as the color of royalty and suffering. It’s significance is not a coincidence given the expense and difficulty in creating the color purple in early times. Furthermore, the color has often symbolized the suffering of Jesus Christ during the crucifixion.
I had the pleasure of witnessing the power of purple during a recent visit to Guatemala a week before Semana Santa (“Holy Week”).
