Three days in Morelia: a city built entirely of pink stone, with hardly a tourist in it

Two nights in the capital of Michoacan: the cathedral and the government palace on the main square, the old music conservatory and the house Morelos was born in, and a last walk out along the aqueduct.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Morelia
Places
9 across 3 days
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Morelia is built out of one material. The quarries nearby produce a pink volcanic stone called cantera, and for four centuries everybody used it: the cathedral, the government palace, the seminaries, the aqueduct, the shopfronts and the kerbs. The result is a historic centre of several hundred buildings in a single colour, which sounds monotonous and is the opposite, because pink cantera changes all day and turns properly gold at about six in the evening.

It is also, for a city this good, remarkably empty. Michoacan has a reputation, most of it earned in the countryside and in the news rather than here, and the effect is that a UNESCO centre of this quality gets a fraction of the visitors that go to towns half its size elsewhere in Mexico. You will be a mild novelty. You will also get the cathedral more or less to yourself.

Three days: an afternoon on the main square, a full day on the museums and the conservatory, and a last morning walking east under the arches to the pink and white church at the end of them.

Highlights

  • The cathedral floodlit on a Saturday night, with fireworks going off the towers
  • Alfredo Zalce's murals up the staircase of the state government building, and nobody looking at them
  • The music school where boys have been trained to sing since the seventeen forties, still doing it
  • Walking the length of the aqueduct down the middle of the avenue, floodlit after dark
  • Michoacan sweets by the kilo in a market that sells nothing else

Where to stay

Morelia, two nights

Founded in 1541 as Valladolid, the city kept that name until 1828, when it was renamed for Jose Maria Morelos, the priest who took over the independence war after Hidalgo was shot and was born here. The historic centre went onto the UNESCO list in 1991, on the strength of how completely it survives: not one great monument but two hundred blocks of the same period and the same stone.

About three-quarters of a million people live here, it is the seat of the state government and it has one of the oldest universities in the Americas, so the centre is busy with students and civil servants rather than with visitors. That is the whole character of the place. Cafes full of people who live here, a bookshop on every second corner, and a cathedral square that is a working public space rather than a viewing platform.

Day by day

Day 1 in Morelia

The cathedral, the government palace and the arcades

The cathedral is the first thing and it is very large: it took the best part of a century to build, finishing in the middle of the seventeen hundreds, and it covers more than two city blocks with its gardens. Two towers, flying buttresses, a tiled dome, and inside a silver font, a nineteenth century German organ and an unexpected amount of light. If you are here on a Saturday, come back at about nine at night for the illumination, when the whole facade is lit in sequence and fireworks are let off the towers, and half the city turns out for it.

Directly opposite is the state government building, put up in the seventeen sixties as a seminary and now the offices of the governor. Walk in, which you are allowed to do, and go up the main staircase: Alfredo Zalce covered the walls and the vault above it with murals of Michoacan history, dense, angry and very good, and on most days there is nobody else looking at them.

Then the arcades along the north side of the avenue, which are where the city sits out in the evening, and dinner under them.

  1. 15:00

    Cathedral

    Religious

    Enormous, pink, and finished in the seventeen forties after nearly a century of work. Twin towers, flying buttresses and a tiled dome outside; a silver baptismal font and a big German organ inside. Free, and best at dusk.

  2. 16:15

    Palacio del Gobierno

    Architecture

    An eighteenth century seminary building that houses the state administration, and you can walk straight in. Three courtyards, ironwork, and Alfredo Zalce's murals covering the main stairwell. Free.

  3. 18:00

    Jardín de las Rosas

    Visit

    A small square of jacarandas and cafe terraces two streets northwest of the cathedral, and the pleasantest place in the centre to sit at the end of the afternoon.

  4. 20:30

    Dinner under the arcades

    Eat

    The colonnade facing the cathedral has tables out until late. Order carnitas earlier in the day than this; in the evening go for enchiladas morelianas or a plate of corundas.

With more time: The sweet market a few streets east is open all day and worth twenty minutes even if you buy nothing, if only to see quince paste sold in slabs like cheese.

Day 2 in Morelia

The Clavijero palace, the boy who became Morelos, and an evening of choir

Start at the old Jesuit college a few streets west of the cathedral, a vast eighteenth century building around a courtyard of orange trees and a fountain, now the city's main exhibition space. What is on changes; the building does not, and the arcaded courtyard on a bright morning is worth the visit by itself.

Then the small house where Jose Maria Morelos was born, which is the reason the city has the name it does. He was a muleteer, then a village priest, then the best field commander the independence war produced, and he was shot for it in 1815. The house is modest and the museum in it is plain, and the two things together tell you more about him than the statues do.

Keep the late afternoon for the conservatory. It has been a music school since the seventeen forties, which makes it one of the oldest in the Americas, it is set around a rose garden in a former convent, and its boys' choir was reorganised in the last century on the model of the Vienna one. Concerts are frequent and cheap, and even when nothing is on you can usually hear rehearsal through the courtyard windows.

  1. 09:45

    Centro Cultural Clavijero

    Religious

    A huge eighteenth century Jesuit college, now galleries set around a broad arcaded patio with a fountain in it. The exhibitions rotate between historic indigenous work and contemporary art. Go for the courtyard as much as the shows.

  2. 11:30

    Casa Natal de Morelos

    Visit

    A modest house museum on the block where he grew up, covering his life and the war he took over after Hidalgo's death. Plain, quiet and half an hour.

  3. 13:30

    Carnitas for lunch

    Eat

    Midday is when carnitas are at their best, sold by weight and eaten with tortillas, salsa and pickled chillies. The places that only do that one thing are the ones to look for.

  4. 17:00

    Conservatory of the Roses

    Visit

    A music school in a former convent, running since the seventeen forties, built around a rose garden. Check the board for a concert by the boys' choir; the acoustics of the hall are the reason to go.

With more time: The colonial art museum a street from the cathedral holds a collection of eighteenth century painting and a striking group of crucifixes made in the pre-Hispanic technique of corn paste, which is light enough to carry and was used for exactly that reason.

Day 3 in Morelia

The fountain, the aqueduct and the pink church at the end of it

The last morning is one straight walk east and it is the best hour in the city. Start at the bronze fountain where the avenue widens: three Purepecha women holding a bowl of fruit above their heads, cast in 1984 to replace an earlier version that had gone, and the photograph everybody takes here.

Behind it the aqueduct begins. Over two hundred and fifty stone arches run down the centre of the avenue for more than a kilometre and a half, rebuilt in the late eighteenth century to bring water in from the hills, and now simply left there with traffic on both sides and a lit walkway underneath. It is floodlit at night and, in daylight, it is the thing that tells you what kind of city this was.

At the far end, turn off for the Guadalupe sanctuary. The outside is an ordinary eighteenth century church front. The inside was redecorated at the start of the twentieth century in soft pink and white plaster with gold picked out over every surface, flowers and scrolls and rosettes running up the columns and across the vault, and it is unlike any other interior in Mexico. Ten minutes, and it will be the thing you describe to people afterwards.

  1. 09:15

    Fuente de las Tarascas

    Other

    Three Purepecha women in bronze holding up a bowl of fruit, at the point where the avenue opens out and the aqueduct starts. The version standing here was cast in 1984.

  2. 10:00

    Cupola Aqueduct

    Visit

    Two hundred and fifty-odd stone arches, with a lit walkway running beneath them. Walk east under it rather than looking at it from a taxi.

  3. 11:15

    Santuario de Guadalupe

    Visit

    Plain outside, and inside a pink, white and gold interior of flowers and scrollwork covering every surface, which is a modern addition rather than a colonial one. Also holds a set of seventeenth century canvases. Free.

  4. 12:30

    Last lunch before the bus

    Eat

    The streets around the far end of the aqueduct have cafes and small restaurants aimed at locals rather than visitors, and they are cheaper and better than anything on the main square.

With more time: The contemporary art museum sits in a nineteenth century mansion just south of the aqueduct, named for the painter whose murals are in the government palace, and it makes a good half hour if the departure is late.

Before you go

Where to stay

Stay in the historic centre. Almost everything worth seeing is inside a kilometre of the cathedral, the streets are flat, clean and well lit, and hotels in converted colonial houses cost noticeably less here than in the better known colonial towns.

Ask for a room off the street, and mean it. Drivers in the central blocks use the horn constantly, day and night, at blind junctions and at each other, and a room over an avenue is a poor night's sleep.

Getting there

Buses are the practical option and Morelia has one of the best stations in the country, out in the north of the city, with a fixed-price taxi kiosk in the concourse. Mexico City is around four hours and Guadalajara about four and a half, both on toll roads and both served all day by first-class coaches.

There is also a regional airport with domestic flights and a handful of services from the United States, which is worth checking if you are coming from further afield than the capital.

Getting around

On foot, for the centre. For anything further out, combis are the local answer: small vans running fixed routes with the destination written on the windscreen, costing a few pesos, paid in cash to the driver as you get in. People greet the whole van when they board, which takes a day to get used to and is then rather nice.

Taxis are plentiful and run on zone fares. Agree the price before you set off.

Eating

Michoacan cooking is one of the great regional cuisines of Mexico and it is not subtle. Carnitas, pork slow-cooked in its own fat and served by the kilo with tortillas and salsa, is the thing to eat at least once, and it is a morning and midday food rather than an evening one. Corundas and uchepos are the local tamales, one triangular and savoury, the other sweet and made from fresh corn.

The city is also famous for sweets, which is not a small industry here: candied fruit, quince paste, jellies, caramel wafers and milk sweets, sold in a covered market given over entirely to them. Buy for people at home, and try the gaspacho, which despite the name is a cup of chopped fruit with lime, chilli, salt and cheese and is better than it sounds.

Is Michoacan safe?

The state's reputation is real and it is also badly localised. Cartel activity in Michoacan is concentrated in rural areas, particularly in the west and the Tierra Caliente, and Morelia itself is a state capital and a university city that is quiet, well policed and comfortable to walk in at night.

Take the precautions any large Mexican city calls for: keep to the centre and the main avenues after dark, use taxis rather than walking alone very late, and do not go looking for the countryside without local advice. Day trips on the main roads to Patzcuaro and the monarch butterfly reserves are ordinary and well travelled.

Morelia does not have a single sight that people cross the country for, and that is rather the point. What it has is consistency: a whole centre of the same pink stone, laid out wide and flat, kept in use, with a university in the middle of it and an aqueduct running out the east side.

Walk the avenue from end to end once in the evening, when the stone goes gold and the arches come on. That is the city.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is three days enough for Morelia?
For the city, yes. The centre is compact and you will have walked all of it. Three days is right because it leaves the option of using the third one differently: Patzcuaro and the lake villages are about an hour away and easily worth a full day of their own.
Is Morelia safe?
Yes, by the standards of any large Mexican city. Michoacan's reputation comes from rural areas well away from the capital, and the centre here is quiet, well lit and comfortable to walk in the evening. Use taxis late at night and stick to the main roads if you go out of the city.
Morelia or Guanajuato?
Guanajuato is stranger and more dramatic, built into a ravine with tunnels under it, and it is full of visitors. Morelia is grander, flatter, calmer and almost empty by comparison, with better food. They are about four hours apart, and if you have the time both fit comfortably into one trip.
What is worth a day trip?
Patzcuaro, an hour southwest, for the lake, the market and the villages that ring it, and it is the centre of the Day of the Dead observances at the start of November. Between November and March the monarch butterfly reserves in the eastern mountains are two to three hours away and are extraordinary, but they need an early start and warm clothes.
When should I go?
The climate is mild all year and the rain falls in afternoon bursts between June and September. October brings the international film festival, which fills the hotels, and the Day of the Dead at the start of November is the busiest week in the region by a distance. Book early for either.
Can I change it?
Yes. Open it in your account and it becomes an ordinary trip you can edit: add a night, give the third day to Patzcuaro, or continue on to Guanajuato.