Potosí mines

City Tour and the Mint. Visit the Cathedral, the churches and the covents with their barroque-mestizo style doorways and altars. Visit the Mint one of the most important repositories for the history of mining and a holding center for the imperial coins. The Mint also contains an exhibit of the most important painters of the colonial times.

Visit a Colonial Mine. Potosi 's fame is tied irrevocably to silver. The city was founded in 1545 when silver was found in the Cerro Rico (Rich Montain). On this tour you will visit one of the few mines that is still preserved in its totality and you will see how the mine was worked in colonial times.

Private Mine (Cooperative). Visit one of the mines where technology has not yet arrived, where each miner extracts the mineral by hand or with rudimentary tools. In these mines the working conditions are very difficult and have not changed since colonial times. Only mornings. Not on Sundays.

To walk through the streets of Potosi is to enter a bygone age when Potosi was a splendid colonial city. Carlos V named Potosi the Imperial city in 1547. In the Mint ( Casa de la Moneda ), the money was coined that would finance the economic development of Europe in the 17th century. This city has been declared a Human Heritage spot by UNESCO.

Map of Potosí - Sucre