Argentina - Salta, Convento de San Bernardo

The Convento de San Bernardo (Convent of St. Bernard) is a Catholic monastery. The building is one of the oldest in the city and was built in the late 16th or early 17th century. It was initially built as an hermitage for San Bernardo, Salta’s first patron saint. The building must have been destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, since every record from the beginnings of the 18th century has been lost. But the records show that it was in 1726 that a new building was funded to function as a hospital.

As years went by, the building was subject to many reforms and it was later designated to other uses until 1846 when it was gifted to the Carmelite sisters. They turned the old hermitage and the hospital into the Convento de San Bernardo, as it stands nowadays.

The convent has a wonderful carved entrance door, made by indigenous craftsmen in the year of 1762 from a carob tree. Only Carmelite nuns may enter the convent. Visitors can approach the adobe building and buy made pastries made by the nuns. The complex was declared a National Historical Monument in 1941.