In the heart of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the charming city of Merida is giving us an old-world feel. It is filled with majestic Spanish colonial structures dating from between the 1600s and 1700s, so well preserved that you can actually feel like you’ve stepped out of a time machine. In addition to admiring these buildings, Mérida is packed with fabulous things to do, whether you consider the past or the present.
If you like to travel back in time, you will surely enjoy visiting one or more of these historical places.
- Ake – a pre-Columbian Mayan “palace” with rows of stone columns crowning a stepped pyramidal platform.
- Acanceh – buildings dating from 200 to 300 AD; means “dying deer” in Mayan.
- Cathedral of San Ildefonso – built in 1958; the oldest east side catholic cathedral in America.
- Montejo House – in 1549 mansion
- Chichen Itza – a pre-Columbian World Heritage site; one of the most visited
- Cenote – A limestone sinkhole filled with fresh water was formed during the Pleistocene epoch.
- Dzibilchaltun – a Mayan ruin that has been constantly occupied for thousands of years.
- Canton Palace (Canton Palace) – It was the home of General Francisco Cantón Rosado; built under the Porfirio Díaz regime.
- Uxmal – a great ruined city of the Mayan civilization; it literally means “built three times” in Mayan.
However, if you want to highlight all the regional history in one place, you can always go to a museum. The huge white mansion of the Regional Museum of Anthropology is open to the public and is highly recommended.
If you bring the whole family, visit the Centenario Zoo. It was built in the time of the Porfiriato and has a gigantic sand playground.
But if you ever get tired of visiting the past, a variety of new things to do is widely available. A little bit of sound and music is always good to cheer you up or relax. We suggest taking a tour of the parks and squares of the city. They perform cultural shows every night that include serenades and regional dances.
Try the cuisine of Mérida and you will never regret it. It explodes with the combination of Mexican, Mayan and European flavors. There are several highly recommended restaurants to visit and many dishes that you simply must try. Some of these dishes include: poc chuc (grilled pork with chopped onion and tomato sauce), lime soup, black filling (turkey in hot and spicy black sauce) and the very popular cochinita pibil (pork marinated in annatto / annato ).
But if you want to mix good food and shopping, head straight to the city markets.
