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Plaza Morazan , Tegucigalpa's central square, functions as a meeting point, marketplace and site of general entertainment. Hawkers vend, beggars beg, people stop and chat, and on Sundays the place swarms with workers enjoying their day off. As busy after dark as during the day, the plaza makes a pleasant place to while away the time and people-watch. The statue at the centre commemorates the national hero Francisco Morazan , a soldier, Liberal and reformer who was elected president of the Central American Republic in 1830. The house where he was born, two blocks west on Av Cristobal Colon, is now the Biblioteca Nacional (Mon-Fri 8.30am-4pm). On the east edge of the plaza, the blinding white facade of the Catedral San Miguel , completed in 1782, is one of the best preserved in Central America. Inside, look out for the magnificent hand-worked Baroque-style gilded altar, and the baptismal font, carved in 1643 by indigenous artesans from a single block of stone. Three blocks east from the plaza, on Av Paz Barahona, the Iglesia San Franciso is the oldest church in the city, first built by the Franciscans in 1592, although much of the present building dates from 1740. Just to the south of the Parque Central, next to the Iglesia La Merced on C Bolivar, the Galeria Nacional de Arte (Mon-Fri 9am-4pm; US$1) is home to an extensive collection of Central American art. Displays on the ground floor range from prehistoric petroglyphs and Maya stone carvings to colonial paintings and religious art, while upstairs rooms are devoted to the gallery's surprisingly ambitious twentieth-century collection. Originally a convent and then the national university, the building's Neoclassical facade sits rather uncomfortably alongside the stained concrete hulk of the Congreso Nacional , the country's seat of government, next door. One block west of the Galeria Nacional de Arte, at Paseo Marco Soto and C Mendieta, the late nineteenth-century presidential palace housed the Museo Historico de la Republica from 1992 until 2000, though it's currently closed for renovations. The museum formerly held a rather dull exhibition tracing Honduran development since independence, though there are plans to install new exhibits in the near future. Running west from the plaza , the pedestrianized Calle Peatonal (literally "pedestrian street") is lined with shops and cafes and thick with innumerable street vendors. Walk west along here for twenty minutes or so, dodging the moneychangers, and you'll come to the small, shady Parque Herrera , where many of the city's street children pass the day. On the south side of the park, the Teatro Nacional Manuel Bonilla , completed in 1915, was originally intended to honour Miguel de Cervantes; within the grey-stone Renaissance-style shell is an ornately plaster-worked interior, based on the Athenee Comique in Paris. Check the local press or ask at the box office for details of current shows. Five blocks north from the theatre along C la Concordia is another welcome patch of green, the Parque La Concordia , dotted with replicas of Maya sculptures. A couple of blocks northwest from the central plaza, set on the small pedestrianized Plaza Los Dolores is the white, domed Iglesia Los Dolores , completed in 1732. Its Baroque facade is decorated with a representation of the Passion of Christ, featuring a crowing cock and the rising sun; inside, the ornately worked gold altar dates from 1742.
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