Armenia: the city that shares its name with a country

Heart of Colombia's Coffee Triangle along with Pereira and Manizales, Armenia bears the name of the Caucasian nation as a tribute to solidarity shown during the Armenian genocide of 1915.

The center is explored on foot; the farms require a car or tour.

The Plaza de Bolívar, rebuilt after the devastating 1999 earthquake that struck the city hard, remains the heart of city life.

A few steps away, the Quimbaya Gold Museum displays pre-Columbian goldwork of the Quimbaya culture, which inhabited this region before the Spanish arrived, with finely crafted pieces.

In the afternoon, it's worth leaving the city for one of the fincas in the coffee cultural landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where beans are still harvested by hand.

Returning to the city in the evening, the Parque de la Vida offers green spaces and public sculptures just steps from downtown.

The city was named Armenia in 1889, decades before the 1915 genocide, as a gesture of solidarity toward a people already persecuted by the Ottoman Empire at that time.

The 1999 earthquake, with a magnitude exceeding six degrees, destroyed much of Armenia's historic center: nearly everything visible today dates from the reconstruction of the following years.