Mérida

The heart of Mérida is the Plaza Grande, the broad, shady main square that has been the city's centre since the 16th century, furnished with the famous S-shaped 'confidente' love seats and busy with families, vendors and musicians. Around it stand the great set-pieces of the colonial city: the Cathedral of San Ildefonso, one of the oldest cathedrals on the American mainland, austere and fortress-like, built from the stones of the Maya city it replaced; the Casa de Montejo, the conquistador family's mansion with an ornate plateresque façade; the Palacio de Gobierno, whose courtyard and upper gallery hold Fernando Castro Pacheco's powerful murals of Yucatán's history; and the arcaded Palacio Municipal. From the plaza, the compact colonial centre spreads out in a grid of pastel houses, churches and small plazas — Santa Lucía with its weekend serenades, Santa Ana, the Mejorada — laced with boutique hotels in restored mansions, galleries and good restaurants. Walkable, atmospheric and notably safe, the old centre rewards slow exploration on foot, ideally in the cooler early morning and evening.

Mérida's grandest street is the Paseo de Montejo, a wide, tree-lined boulevard laid out at the turn of the 20th century in imitation of Parisian avenues and lined with the opulent mansions of the henequen barons. Henequen — the agave fibre known as sisal, used worldwide for rope and twine — made Yucatán enormously rich in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the families poured their fortunes into these French- and Italian-style palaces. Today the Paseo is a pleasure to stroll, especially in the evening: some mansions are now museums, hotels, restaurants and cafés, while the Palacio Cantón houses the Regional Museum of Anthropology. At the boulevard's far end stands the Monumento a la Patria, a monumental carved stone tribute to Mexican history. Nearby, the striking modern Gran Museo del Mundo Maya gives an excellent introduction to Maya civilisation, useful before visiting the ruins. The Paseo and its surrounds show the cosmopolitan, prosperous side of Mérida, a counterpoint to the colonial core.

Few Mexican cities have as rich a free cultural life as Mérida: there is live music, dance or folklore in the public squares almost every night, from the Monday-evening Vaquería (a regional folk dance) outside the city hall and the Tuesday big-band nights to the Thursday Serenata in Santa Lucía and the Sunday 'Mérida en Domingo', when the centre closes to traffic for markets, music and family fun. The city's markets, above all the sprawling Lucas de Gálvez, are a sensory introduction to the region's produce and street food. And Mérida is one of the best places anywhere to eat Yucatecan cuisine — a distinctive kitchen shaped by Maya, Spanish, Lebanese and Caribbean influences: cochinita pibil (achiote-marinated pork slow-roasted in banana leaf), sopa de lima, papadzules, salbutes and panuchos, queso relleno, and the sweet, crisp marquesita from the street carts, all best washed down with a cold horchata or a Yucatecan beer. Between the nightly culture and the food, the city itself is one of its own greatest attractions.

Mérida is the perfect base for the wider Yucatán Peninsula, with most of the region's highlights within a day trip. To the east, Chichén Itzá — one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, crowned by the pyramid of El Castillo — and the lovely colonial town of Valladolid lie a couple of hours away; to the south, the magnificent and far quieter ruins of Uxmal and the ornate Puuc Route sites are even closer. The entirely golden-yellow 'magic town' of Izamal, built around a great Franciscan monastery on a Maya pyramid, makes a charming half-day; the peninsula's limestone is riddled with cenotes — natural swimming sinkholes — for a cooling dip; and the old henequen haciendas, many restored as hotels and museums, dot the countryside. On the coast, the Gulf town of Progreso offers a beach day with its long pier, and the lagoons of Celestún shelter great flocks of pink flamingos. With its own airport and good roads, Mérida lets you combine the comforts of a beautiful city with the ancient wonders and natural sites of the whole region.