Sights in Querétaro State
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Templo de Santa Rosa de Viterbos
The 18th-century Templo de Santa Rosa de Viterbos is Querétaro's most splendid baroque church, with its pagoda-like bell tower, unusual exterior paintwork, curling buttresses and lavishly gilded and marbled interior. The church also boasts what some say is the earliest four-sided clock in the New World.
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Museo Regional
The Museo Regional is beside the Templo de San Francisco. The ground floor holds interesting exhibits on pre-Hispanic Mexico, archaeological sites, Spanish occupation and the state's various indigenous groups.
Upstairs exhibits reveal Querétaro's role in the independence movement and post-independence history (plus religious paintings). The table at which the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, ending the Mexican-American War, is on display, as is the desk of the tribunal that sentenced Emperor Maximilian to death.
The museum is housed in part of what was once a huge monastery and seminary. Begun in 1540, the seminary became the seat of the Franciscan province…
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El Cerrito
If you happen to be interested in archaeology, check out El Cerrito, a 30m-high pyramid-like structure sitting atop a small hill located in El Pueblito, 7km from central Querétaro. Archaeologists, who are still excavating the site, believe it was occupied between AD 600 and 1600 by the Teotihuacán, Toltec, Chichimec, Otomí and Tarasca cultures. Besides the pyramid, there are the remains of a possible ball court and some outlying structures. A later fort-type construction on its top dates from 1876.
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Templo Y Convento de la Santa Cruz
This convent was built between 1654 and about 1815 on the site of a battle in which a miraculous appearance of Santiago (St James) led the Otomí to surrender to the conquistadors and Christianity. Emperor Maximilian had his headquarters here while under siege in Querétaro from March to May 1867. After his surrender and subsequent death sentence, he was jailed here while awaiting the firing squad. Today it’s used as a religious school.
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Teatro de la República
This lovely old and functioning theater, complete with impressive chandeliers, was where a tribunal met in 1867 to decide the fate of Emperor Maximilian. Mexico’s constitution was also signed here on January 31, 1917. The stage backdrop lists the names of its signatories and the states they represented. In 1929, politicians met in the theater to organize Mexico’s long-time ruling party, the PNR (now the PRI).
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Museo de Arte de Querétaro
Adjacent to the Templo de San Agustín, Querétaro’s art museum occupies a splendid baroque monastery built between 1731 and 1748. It is worth visiting to see the building alone: angels, quirky gargoyles, statues and other ornamental details abound, particularly around the stunning courtyard.
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Ranas
The little-visited archaeological site of Ranas has well-built walls and circular steps incorporated into a steep hillside. There are ball courts and a small hilltop pyramid. Dating from as early as the 8th century, the site is appealing for its rugged forest setting.
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Museo de la Restauración de la República
If you can read Spanish or are a real history buff, check out the Museo de la Restauración de la República which covers Querétaro’s role in Mexico’s history, particularly the French occupation and the eventual ousting of Emperor Maximilian.
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Templo de San Francisco
This impressive church fronts Jardín Zenea. Pretty colored tiles on the dome were brought from Spain in 1540, around the time construction of the church began. Inside are some fine religious paintings from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
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La Parroquia de Santa María de la Asunción
The wide and attractive Plaza Miguel Hidalgo is surrounded by portales (arcades), overlooked by the 19th-century neoclassical La Parroquia de Santa María de la Asunción with its pink facade and decorated tower.
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Casa de la Zacatecana
This is a finely restored 17th-century home with a lovely collection of 18th- and 19th-century furniture and decorations (and its own murder mystery – skeletons were discovered in the basement).
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Quinta Fernando Schmoll
On the east edge of Cadereyta, 38km from Tequisquiapan is the Quinta Fernando Schmoll, a botanic garden with over 4400 varieties of cactus.
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Monumento a la Corregidora
Plaza de la Corregidora is dominated by the Monumento a la Corregidora, a 1910 statue of doña Josefa Ortiz bearing the flame of freedom.
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Fuente de Neptuno
A block west of Jardín Zenea is the Fuente de Neptuno, designed by noted Mexican neoclassical- architect Eduardo Tresguerras in 1797.
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Mausoleo de la Corregidora
The Mausoleo de la Corregidora is the resting place of doña Josefa Ortiz and her husband, Miguel Domínguez de Alemán.
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Cathedral
Two blocks west of the Templo de Santa Clara , on Madero, is the rather plain 18th-century cathedral.
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Museo de la Ciudad
The 11-room Museo de la Ciudad has some good alternating contemporary-art exhibits.
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Templo de Santa Clara
The 17th-century Templo de Santa Clara has an ornate baroque interior.
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