Santo Domingo Church - Oaxaca

This Dominican Order church and monastery was built between 1570 and 1608 and like all the churches on Oaxaca have thick stone walls – some being in excess of thirty feet according to my estimate. The exterior is fairly austere but the interior cloister and throughout the monastery we start to get hints of the glorious sanctuary of the church itself. Deb and I were wandering around marveling at the paintings and all the gold when we stumbled upon a string trio of musicians standing in a small alcove. We continued wandering around the Alter and a priest came out from behind it and started setting up for a mass. We moved discreetly away just as the trio started playing the wedding march and as the wedding party began their procession. Really quite nice! Note that we are pretty much in the tallest structure in the city. Most buildings are only one or two stories high – wise considering Oaxaca gets over 200 earthquakes per year. Apparently we were there during a 5.2 quake but we were entertaining some friends in the RV at the time and never noticed the shaker.