A short walk at Plaza José Félix Ribas in La Victoria.

Hello, Hivers and Wednesday walkers!

Today as every hump day, I try to share a walk for the Wednesday Walk. We did this one last Saturday. The husband and I had to go for work reasons to another locality, La Victoria.

This small city is in Aragua State. It is just over an hour from Caracas. We went to attend a movie forum for one of my husband's movies. When it was over, as it was still early in the afternoon, we decided to visit a bit of the historical center of the city and have a quick walk.

So we went downtown by car. We were approaching the central square, but on the way, we passed by this building, the Palacio Campo Elias.

We got off to take a picture and continued. The building dates from the early 20th century and was built during the presidency of Cipriano Castro.

The building had better times and needs a restoration. Let's hope the authorities do what they have to do and not let this architectural and historical piece of the city be lost.

We continue our way to the plaza along Soublette Street.

As we got closer to the square, we could see that the houses were more colonial style.

We were able to park in a corner of the Plaza from where we could see this yellow building, known as the Casa de la Azotea. We were told that nowadays there is a library there.

From where we parked, we also had a very good view of the church and its bell tower. It would be great to be able to go up and see the square from there. But of course, that is not allowed.

This is the Iglesia Matriz de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, and I will tell you more about it in a minute.

But our walk started heading towards the plaza.

The Plaza José Félix Ribas is the main square of the city. It is a small curiosity because there must not be many cities in Venezuela whose main square is not named after Bolivar. This was the old Plaza Mayor of the city in colonial times.

We approached the monument in homage to José Félix Ribas and the battle of La Victoria.

At the time of independence, José Félix Ribas commanded a troop composed mainly of young people and students who won an important victory against the royalist army in the Battle of La Victoria. It occurred on a February 12, and that is why that date is celebrated in Venezuela the Day of Youth.

From there we went to walk around the perimeter of the square. The surrounding colonial-style houses are mostly well-preserved.

Some of the streets leading from the square were also well-preserved and looked a bit lonely.

It seemed that time passed a little slower there, more relaxed.

In another of the streets next to the square in a building where is a theater, we even saw some people quietly playing a little game of chess. Do you see them? The building is the Teatro Municipal José Félix Ribas.

From there, on the other side of the square, we had the church in front of us. But we continued to walk around the perimeter of the square.

More colonial houses of vibrant colors that at least on the outside looked well preserved.

This striking green one looked like a bar.

But we wanted to go to the one on the next corner, where there is an ice cream parlor that we were told is an icon of the city.

The ice cream parlor La Emisora is located in the same building where the first radio station of the city used to be. Today the radio station is gone but the ice cream parlor is still there and has been passed down from generation to generation.

To our disappointment, it was closed. A lady who kindly opened the door told us that they were closed until showtime. We didn't ask more but maybe it was a show taking place in the theater, who knows.

A view of the square. I liked how wooded it was, and although La Victoria is quite hot, much more than Caracas, the square felt quite cool thanks to so much vegetation.

A view of a street that goes from the square to the center of the city outside the historic center.

And then, we headed to church.

Two plaques on the façade about the history of the church caught our attention.

The first said that in that church in 1726 was baptized Juan Vicente de Bolívar y Ponte, father of the liberator Simon Bolívar.

The other plaque tells that in 1843 the German emigrants were received in this church on their way to the place where today is located La Colonia Tovar. A village in the mountains near La Victoria, founded by Germans that to this day retains many of the customs and architecture of the region of Baden in Germany from which the group of emigrants came.

The inside of the church is simple but I found it beautiful.

On the way out we went back to the car and took a last picture of the view of the church.

It was a short but pleasant walk. And when we left we took the highway back to Caracas. It had been many years since I had been to La Victoria, and I was left with a pleasant impression, at least of this little piece of the city. Also, the movie forum of the husband's movie was a success, so it was a great Saturday.

This is my post for this week's #wednesdaywalk challenge hosted by @tattoodjay in collaboration with #makemesmile hosted by @elizacheng.

Thank you for reading.

_{If you're reading this and you are not on Hive yet, I invite you to join through my referral link. And I could delegate some resource credit to help you get started.}