La Gran Francia

With its ample ceilings, lined with slender cane; its extensive corridors, bedecked in intricately designed floors; and its high roof, adorned by aged terracotta Spanish tile, the architectural jewel, La Gran Francia, is one of the best examples of Spanish colonial construction in Nicaragua. Because of it s privileged location on the southeastern corner of El Parque Colon, around which the most important governmental and religious buildings in Granada still predominate, historians have deduced that the erection of the original building that would come to be known as La Gran Francia, dates, to the first couple of years after the founding of the colonial city in 1524. Written testimony and engravings left behind by travelers who passed through Granada during the XVII century confirm this hypothesis, describing the colonial style of the house, which was then just a one story building. Within its thick adobe walls, this beautiful grand edifice contains more than two centuries of legends and historical anecdotes that haunt the imagination and delight the senses. La Gran Francia opened its doors to the public after undergoing a meticulous and careful reconstruction so that this treasure of Nicaraguan architecture, rescued from its inevitable and slow collapse, has been restored in faithful image of its golden glory.