After a long day trekking around a volcano and a historic archaeological site, we planned a less energetic day.
A visit to the national museum and then a stroll around the shops in the city.
The museum is less than 2km from the hotel, and it was downhill all the way, so we walked there. One thing we hadn't anticipated was the sheer size of the museum, it was huge.
Room after room of artwork, statues and other artefacts from all over the world. We didn't take many photos because there was so much to see.
One of the more interesting items was not something brought from a far-off land but a feature built into the fabric of the building.
It is a type of calendar which shows the current astrological star sign in effect by pointing a beam of sunlight at a strip on the floor. It stretches far along the floor of the room, slicing through the existing marble floor.
At around midday, a small hole in the top corner of the room allows the sun to shine through, focusing a dot of light onto the floor. As the Earth rotates, the dot sweeps across the 'calendar', crossing the centre line at the local actual midday. On the Summer solstice, the beam strikes the dark spot at the end of the grid, and then six months later, on the Winter solstice, it crosses the far end of the grid. There are two 'tracks' along the calendar. The right side lists the astronomical signs, starting at Cancer, along to Sagittarius at the far end, and then the left side lists the rest from Capricorn to Gemini, back to the near end.
The light dot (a 'camera obscura' image of the Sun) approaches the centre line from the left and slowly creeps across the grid, truly ingenious and perfectly accurate as long as the Sun shines.
Of course, this is not the only thing of interest in the room.
You only have to look up, just like in each of the other rooms, the ceiling is highly decorated.
After leaving the museum, much later than we had envisioned, we went towards the city centre to explore the shopping streets and find a place for lunch.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent pounding the streets and looking in shops.