One of Macao's colonial treasures, the Bela Vista Hotel, has been converted into the Portuguese consulate, depriving visitors of a sublime view from the veranda.
Miera y Pacheco is also credited with creating one of New Mexico's Spanish colonial treasures: a carved-stone altar screen from 1761, which is housed in Santa Fe's Cristo Rey Church, not far from the museum.
A two-hour drive from Mexico City past snow-capped peaks and volcanoes, Puebla, a city of some 1.3 million people, is chock full of colonial treasures, cafe-lined squares and a vibrant arts-and-crafts culture.
At 9,200 feet above sea level and stretching for 36 miles on a plateau lined with volcanoes, Quito was the first city ever to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 1978 owing to its geographical beauty, 18th-century architecture, priceless Colonial treasures and its living traditions and culture.
And since well before Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation opened in April at the museum – a repository of colonial loot and treasure from a once mighty empire – this exhibition has been mired in it.
Colonial Symphony's "Classical Treasures" Concert.
And while the San José may have been carrying treasure plundered from colonial territories and found off the coast of what is now Colombia, it was undoubtedly a Spanish ship at the time it went down.
Colonial archaeologists packed off its treasures to Europe a century ago.
Some are journeys of leisure, the kind of expeditions into faraway lands and adventures in exotic locations we loved reading about as children: tall tales about treasure islands, daredevil pilots and colonial exploits.
The idea of transforming the city into a cultural center received a boost in 1998, when Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the first lady, visited the Colonial as part of a "Save America's Treasures" tour.
