Tepotzotlan

Tepotzotlan is where the art of New Spain goes for its family portrait. The Jesuits ran their novitiate and indigenous college here, and their church of San Francisco Javier - completed in the 1760s just before the order's expulsion - is the textbook of Churrigueresque: a facade carved like an altarpiece in golden stone, and inside, ten gilded retablos climbing floor to vault in saints, angels and estipite columns, culminating in the Camarin de la Virgen, an octagonal golden chamber that ranks with the Rosario chapels of Puebla and Oaxaca among the country's baroque summits. The attached college is the Museo Nacional del Virreinato, the national collection of the viceregal centuries: ivories from Manila, feather mosaics, nun-crown portraits, silver, sculpture and painting arranged around cloisters, orchards and the original library. Outside the walls, a proper pueblo magico plaza gets on with quesadillas and weekend bands; in December the museum's courtyard pastorelas - satirical shepherd plays - are a capital-region institution.

History

The first people here were most likely the Otomi. The Jesuits founded the College of San Francisco Javier in 1580, and it remained a centre of learning until 1914; the college complex now houses the Museo del Virreinato (Wikipedia, Tepotzotlán).

Highlights

• San Francisco Javier - the Churrigueresque facade and ten golden retablos.
• The Camarin de la Virgen - the octagonal gilded chamber.
• The Viceroyalty Museum - New Spain's arts around Jesuit cloisters.
• The plaza - arcades, quesadilla smoke and weekend bands.

When to go

Any dry-season day; the gilding wants late-morning light through the nave. December brings the famous pastorelas - book ahead - and Holy Week fills the plaza.

Good to know

Museum and church close Mondays. The collection is large - the church alone rewards an hour, the museum two more. Weekend plaza life is boisterous; art-first visitors should come midweek.

Nearby

The Arcos del Sitio aqueduct spans its canyon twenty minutes west; the Tula ruins lie forty minutes north.

Key facts