Antigua is 'finest planned city in Central America'

The ancient city of Antigua in Guatemala is one of the most fantastically elegant in the whole of Central America and is an ideal place for people to take solo holidays.

That is according to travel writer Claire Boobbyer, who put forward this opinion in an article about Guatamala for the Wanderlust website.

She says that it is one of the earliest cities built by the Spanish colonists in Central America and the views of the architecture and surrounding nature make it worth the trip alone.

"[Originally,] squat houses lined cobbled streets, baroque churches towered over columned convent courtyards and handsome civic architecture bestowed grandeur on a city standing under the gaze of several volcanoes," she writes.

However, some of the city was destroyed by an 18th-century earthquake, "but its skeletal elegance was trapped in time - and its 20th-century renaissance has drawn tourists to the city, and its surrounding region, in their thousands."

Alongside the architecture and volcanic views, the markets and "colonial charms" cause Ms Boobbyer to suggest that Antigua is truly "Guatemala at its best".