Querétaro

What earned Querétaro its listing is unusual: the old town preserves two town plans at once, the rigid Spanish grid of the colonists and the twisting lanes of the indigenous quarter beside it, laid out together in the sixteenth century and never merged. The centre is full of small plazas linked by pedestrian alleys, with a convent church whose interior is thick with gilt and an eighteenth-century aqueduct of 74 arches, some nearly thirty metres high, striding across a valley on the edge of the city. Querétaro is also the base for the Sierra Gorda missions and for a wine and cheese route that has grown quickly on the plateau to the north.

What you actually see

• The aqueduct - 74 arches up to thirty metres high across the valley.
• The two town plans - Spanish grid and indigenous lanes side by side.
• Santa Rosa de Viterbo - a convent church of extravagant gilded interior.
• The plazas and andadores - small squares linked by pedestrian alleys.

When to go

October to May is dry and pleasant; at around eighteen hundred metres the city is mild year-round with cool evenings. Summer brings afternoon storms. The plazas are at their best in the early evening when the city comes out to eat.

Honest expectations

It is a prosperous industrial and business city, so the historic core is a small part of a large modern sprawl and the drive in is unappealing. There is no single showpiece monument on the scale of Guanajuato or Zacatecas; the appeal is the texture of the streets. Weekend crowds from Mexico City fill the centre.

Nearby

The Sierra Gorda missions are three and a half hours northeast; San Miguel de Allende is an hour north.