La Antigua

La Antigua sits on a river a short way inland from the Gulf, shaded by enormous trees, and it carries an outsized share of early colonial history. Spanish settlers moved here in the 1520s from the first coastal site, making it the effective early seat of Veracruz for decades. Two buildings anchor the village: the Ermita del Rosario, a small stone chapel of the 1520s that competes for the title of oldest surviving church on the American mainland, and the Casa de Cortes - a ruined stone house traditionally, if loosely, associated with the conquistador, now roofless and gripped from top to bottom by the aerial roots of a strangler fig in the most photographed embrace in Veracruz. A ceiba by the river is pointed out as the tree where Cortes is said to have moored his ships. Around them the village is a Sunday-lunch destination: riverside palapas serving fish and prawns, boats for hire, a hanging bridge and locals swimming off the bank in the afternoon heat.

What you actually see

• The Casa de Cortes - stone walls consumed by fig roots.
• The Ermita del Rosario - a 1520s chapel still standing.
• The river frontage - palapas, boats and the hanging bridge.
• The great trees - ceibas and figs shading the village.

When to go

November to April for dry weather; Sundays for the full riverside lunch scene, weekdays for quiet ruins. Mornings are coolest.

Honest expectations

The historical attributions are traditional rather than documented - the buildings are genuinely early, the Cortes associations looser. The village is small; an hour covers the monuments, lunch fills the rest.

Nearby

Cempoala's Totonac ruins are twenty minutes north; Veracruz port lies half an hour south.