Tlaxcala City

Tlaxcala rarely makes itineraries, which is its charm and its injustice. The state that allied with Cortes kept privileges no other indigenous republic held, and its little capital wears the history with ease: Plaza de la Constitucion, one of the country's handsomest squares, runs long arcades under ochre and brick-red facades, with a seventeenth-century fountain gifted by Felipe IV in 1646 and the Government Palace whose interior blazes with Desiderio Hernandez Xochitiotzin's twentieth-century murals of Tlaxcalan history - decades in the painting. Up the cypress-lined climb behind the plaza, the former Franciscan convent of 1530s vintage keeps one of the oldest church roofs in the Americas - a Mudejar cedar ceiling - and murals counted among the country's earliest surviving colonial paintings. The bullring below, the Talavera-tiled parish domes, pulque haciendas in the countryside and the raucous Feria in late October complete a capital that works at strolling pace.

History

The name most likely means "place of corn bread", and the Aztec glyph shows two hills with hands making a tortilla. There was no town here for most of the pre-Hispanic era, when the region was ruled by four allied dominions, Tepeticpac, Ocotelolco, Tizatlan and Quiahuiztlan; the Spanish laid out the city as a centre of evangelisation and government, and it was the seat of a diocese until it lost that status to Puebla (Wikipedia, Tlaxcala (city)).

The main sights

• Plaza de la Constitucion - arcades, fountain and ochre colonnades.
• The Government Palace murals - Tlaxcala's epic told wall by wall.
• The Franciscan convent - Mudejar cedar ceiling and early murals.
• The basilica of Ocotlan - white stucco towers and Talavera dome on the hill.

When to go

October to April for dry strolling weather; the city fair around All Saints brings livestock, rides and pulque. Weekends animate the arcades without crowding them.

Before you go

This is a quiet provincial capital - nightlife is modest and many museums close early. Its pleasures are architectural and unhurried; pair it with Cacaxtla for a full day. English is scarce.

Nearby

Cacaxtla's murals and Val Quirico lie within half an hour; Puebla's baroque bulk is forty minutes south.

Key facts