The abandoned Hospital San Juan de Dios stands near the city centre, its neoclassical walls crumbling and its courtyards given over to weeds and roosting birds. It is one of the most striking ruins in Nicaragua — the kind of place where the architectural ambition of colonial Granada is still visible even in collapse.
The building is not officially open to the public, but visitors routinely walk through. The colonnaded wards, the peeling frescoes in the chapel, and the overgrown gardens make for haunting photographs and a genuine sense of the city's layered history. Go in the morning when the light comes through the broken windows. Exercise the usual caution in abandoned structures — the floors are sound in most areas but deteriorating.