There are places to which we travel, and imagine staying. For me, one such place is Puebla. An easy two-hour drive or bus ride southeast of Mexico City, Puebla seems light years away from the pollution and buzz of the capital. With a temperate mountain climate, a relatively prosperous and relaxed atmosphere and the best street food in Mexico or so Poblanos claim, and why not believe them? Its historical center, the centro, contains so many gems of Spanish colonial architecture, such a range of beautiful churches, and so many vintage buildings covered in the colorful, patterned Talavera tiles for which the city is famous, that it has been designated a Unesco World Heritage site.
In mid-July, my visit coincided with graduation β Puebla is an important university town β and it was fun to watch the groups of students in academic gowns, together with their proud families, celebrating and taking photos. For the past several years, the Amparo has been undergoing a major redesign and renovation; the pre-Columbian section will be closed for construction until late fall.
But the compensation is the spare, elegant rooftop garden from which you can see the centro, a vista dominated by the dark stone of the monumental cathedral. Begun in the 16th century, the enormous structure was consecrated three-quarters of a century later and completed over several hundred years, during which the interior was furnished with elaborately carved choir stalls and a mammoth pipe organ; the canopy over the central altar was added in the early 19th century.
It is said that an angel appeared to help the builders manage the challenging task of installing the eight-and-a-half-ton bell in the south tower. Surrounding the cathedral, visible from the terrace of the Museo Amparo, the domes of nearby churches covered in brightly patterned tile give the roofscape an oddly Middle Eastern appearance.
Puebla contains hundreds of churches, ranging in style from the austere San Juan de Letran, decorated with wooden statues depicting in gory detail the wounds of Christ and the suffering of the souls in purgatory, to, at the opposite extreme, the Rosary Chapel in the Church of Santo Domingo.
