Zacatlan de las Manzanas

Zacatlan sits where the Puebla highlands break into cloud-forest canyon, and it has built its identity on two crops: apples and time. The apples came with the highland climate - orchards ring the town, and August's Feria de la Manzana fills the streets with cider, fruit wines, pan de queso and blessing-of-the-harvest processions; cider houses pour year-round. The clocks came with the Olvera family, whose Relojes Centenario factory - the first monumental-clock maker in Latin America - has sent tower clocks across the continent for a century; their gift to the town is the zocalo's famous floral clock, twin five-metre dials planted in thousands of bedding plants, chiming over the plaza, with a quirky clock museum behind the factory explaining the mechanics. The third attraction nature provided: the Barranca de los Jilgueros plunges from the town's very edge, its glass-floored lookout hanging over a green gorge where waterfalls thread into mist that rises, most afternoons, to swallow the rim in cloud.

What you actually see

• The floral clock - twin planted dials chiming on the zocalo.
• The clock museum - a century of monumental timepieces.
• The canyon lookout - glass floor over the Jilgueros gorge.
• Apple culture - cider houses, orchards and the August fair.

When to go

August for the apple fair's full fiesta; clear mornings any season for the canyon before the mist climbs. Winter brings crisp air and the fog rivers the town is photographed swimming in.

Honest expectations

The famous valley fog is weather, not schedule - canyon views come and go by the hour. Fair week fills every bed in the sierra. Lanes are steep and cobbled; wear real shoes.

Nearby

The stacked stones of Piedras Encimadas and Chignahuapan's bauble workshops are each within half an hour; the Tulimán falls lie down-valley.