A couple blocks away on San Francisco Plaza. Plaza de San Francisco has been a major square for hundreds of years. During the first millennium, nomadic tribes exchanged goods here in a marketplace named Tianguez. After the Inca warrior Pachacuti conquered them in 1463, this became the epicenter for the Kingdom of Quito and the location of an Inca temple. When the Spanish captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa in 1533, his palace and military buildings were destroyed, and the city was renamed San Francisco de Quito. The Spaniards later built an enormous church and monastery of the same name overlooking this square.
