We visited the Quito colonial; la plaza de Independencia, president palace, place and church Santo Domingo, El monasterio de San Francisco ($2) and La Basilica where you can go for $2 at the top of the tower to have a beautiful view of Quito. Our favorite place was the Basilica. We wanted to visit a few more places but a storm stopped us at around 3pm! After getting back to the hotel by cab ($1.5) to pick up our rain gears we walked to the modern Quito (1 hour) and entered a totally different world. This part of the town looks like an American city, the streets and pavements are clean and wide, the shops are similar to the one we have in Europe, no more of those typical South American small shops. People in the street are dressed like in Europe, you can see only modern cars and also this part of the town is less noisy/busy. We found a street with lots of bars and restaurants that are quite expensive (for Ecuador) and filled up with tourists. We did not see many tourists while visiting the colonial Quito but we saw a lot of them in this street. We had a lovely meal (quite expensive...for ecuador $15 each). The ride back to our hotel at the edge of the Quito colonial was $2.50.
