The Aqueduct
Queretaro is a beautiful colonial city that can be appreciated for many of its enchanting sites and buildings but the one building of Queretaro that inspires more than a sigh or two is the Aqueduct. In the 1720s, the city of Queretaro was suffering from the lack of clean drinking water. With the river contaminated and the people dying, it was a very bleak place that seemed to have little hope in survival. The bleakness, however, did not touch the heart of one man by the name of Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana, Knight of the Order of Alcantara and a hydraulic engineer.
Legend has it that Urrutia y Arana fell in love with a nun by the name of Sor Marcela, who was said to be beautiful and from a well-to-do family. Because of the vows she took on becoming a Capuchina nun, she could not have any sort of amorous relation with the love struck engineer, who, incidentally, was also married. Instead, she asked him for a show of his love by bringing clean drinking water to the city. In this manner, the construction of the Aqueduct began.
From 1726 to 1735, the Aqueduct construction went underway. It has 74 arches, made of rock, reaching a maximum height of over 75 feet and a length of nearly 4200 feet. The first part of the Aqueduct was constructed underground. The subsequent parts rise through the valley and the city for about 3 miles, ending in a cistern near the Convent of the Santa Cruz in a place called La Caja de Agua. It is said that the final arch of this Aqueduct brought water to the very convent where Sor Marcela lived and engraving a very romantic story into the history of Queretaro.
