Event: Honduras - Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa

When:	Daily
Where:	Tegucigalpa

Before becoming a thriving city Tegucigalpa was an important mining town, and owes its capital status to the love story of one of the country's ex presidents, Dr Marco Aurelio Soto and his wife.

It is said that the high society of Comayagua, the country's previous capital, scorned the president's wife due to her lowly Tegucigalpa roots and thus prompted him to name her native town as the capital city in order to spite them. Known affectionately as Tegus, the name orginates from the Nahuatl language and is translated as Silver Mountain.

Situated in a valley surrounded by mountains blanketed in pine forest, the city contrasts the old constructions with the modern. The historic centre contains the majority of the city's museums, including the Museo Nacional Villa Roy that is found in the old house of Don Julio Lozano - one of the country's past rulers - and holds a worthy collection of pre-columbian artefacts.

The Teatro Manuel Bonilla is another architectural gem worth visiting, as is the imposing Catedral de Tegucigalpa in the Plaza Central. Plaza de la Merced holds the Iglesia de la Merced and the old Merced convent that was once the principal building of the Universidad Nacional de Honduras. A relatively new architectural icon in the city is the statue of Cristo del Pichaco, inaugurated in 1997 in the Parque del Picacho.