El Viejo is a city and a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

in the

Chinandega Chinandega () is a city and the departmental seat of Chinandega department in Nicaragua. It is also the administrative centre of the surrounding municipality of the same name. It is Nicaragua's 2nd most important city (economy) and 6th largest ci ...

department of

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the coun ...

. El Viejo is a small city near the city of

, noted for its particular gastronomic specialties, which include ''rosquillas'' ( a type of doughnut), ''cajetas'' (a type of

dulce de leche ''Dulce de leche'' (; pt, doce de leite), also known as caramelized milk, milk candy or milk jam in English, is a confection from Latin America prepared by slowly heating sugar and milk over a period of several hours. The resulting substance, ...

), ''bollitos de leche'' (a kind of

scone A scone is a baked good, usually made of either wheat or oatmeal with baking powder as a leavening agent, and baked on sheet pans. A scone is often slightly sweetened and occasionally glazed with egg wash. The scone is a basic component ...

), and a fruit particular to the region called the toncua, which is related to the

papaya The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus '' Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...

and is eaten with

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

. El Viejo is also the site of a colonial-era church, the Basilica of the

Immaculate Conception of Mary The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

in El Viejo (''Basílica Inmaculada Concepción de María en El Viejo''), built in the 17th century. The image was crowned by the Pope in May 1989 via decree from December 1988. The church was elevated to the status of national religious sanctuary on 8 October 1995, and was declared a minor basilica on February 7, 1996, by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

, during his second visit to Nicaragua. The basilica possesses a

baptismal font A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism. Aspersion and affusion fonts The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion (sprinkling) or affusion (pouring). ...

dating from 1560, and also possesses a little statue of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

. Tradition states that Fray Pedro de Zepeda y Ahumada, brother of Teresa of Avila, traveling to El Realejo with the image, was forced to go to El Viejo due to a storm. The people of El Viejo were so taken by it that they wished for the image to stay in their town. However, Zepeda y Ahumada set off once more for El Realejo, but a second storm forced him back to El Viejo. Thus, he decided that this was a sign of divine intervention and left the image in El Viejo. Virgen del Trono

On December 6 of every year, the silver that is part of the little statue is washed before congregants in a ceremony called the ''lavado de la plata''. The city is twinned with

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

External links

Norwich Council page on twinning with El Viejo

References

Municipalities of the Chinandega Department {{Nicaragua-geo-stub