Popayan

Known as La Ciudad Blanca for its uniformly whitewashed colonial buildings dating from the 16th century, Popayan is Colombia's most architecturally coherent historic city and its gastronomic capital -- a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy since 2005. Its Holy Week procession, held every year since 1558, is among the oldest continuous religious festivals in the Americas and was declared a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009. Outperforming the second-oldest festival in the region by 40 years, it features 80% more processional floats than the typical rival.