Things to do in Guadalajara
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Instituto Mexicano-Americano de Cultura
The Instituto Mexicano-Americano de Cultura offers one- to 52-week courses. Study between one and four hours per day. Check its website for course fees and homestay options. Music and dance classes are also available.
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Tonalá
This dusty, bustling suburb is about 13km southeast of downtown Guadalajara and home to even more artisans. You can feel this town beginning to take Tlaquepaque's lead, with a few airy, inviting showrooms and cafés opening around town, but it remains happily rough around the edges. It's fun to roam through the dark, dusty stores and workshops. Anything you can buy in Tlaquepaque, you can find here for much less, which is what attracts wholesale buyers from all over the world.
On Thursday and Sunday, Tonalá bursts into a huge street market that sprouts on Av Tonaltecas and crawls through dozens of streets and alleys and takes hours to explore. This is where wholesale meet…
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Birriería las Nueve Esquinas
Half a dozen blocks south of the city center, the un-touristy Nueve Esquinas (nine corners) neighborhood specializes in birria, meat steamed in its own juices until it’s so tender it melts in your mouth. Birriería las Nueve Esquinas does it best. The open, tiled kitchen, with its in-house tortillería is as beautiful as the tasty and absurdly tender barbacoa de borrego (baked lamb) and birria de chivo (steamed goat) served in traditional ceramic casseroles. Enjoy them with a stack of fresh tortillas and smaller bowls of guacamole, pickled onions and salsa verde (green sauce) swimming with cilantro and perfectly ripe chunks of avocado.
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Paraninfo
West of the city center, where Avenidas Juárez and Federalismo meet, is shady Parque Revolución, which has become a haven for pierced skaters. Three blocks further west is the Paraninfo, one of the main buildings of the Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG).
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La Antigua
The location and ambience outshine the food at this charming terrace restaurant overlooking the plaza. But it’s worth considering for the made-to-order salsa and tortillas and the sizzling molcajete de arrachera, a traditional beef and cheese stew simmering in a spicy chili sauce.
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Chai
Guadalajara’s young and pretty pack into plush booths to sip chai lattes and nibble on panini at this casual hippie-chic café, home of the city’s best brunches. A second location, in a restored mansion in the upscale Zona Rosa has a sunny terrace and free wi-fi.
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Karne Garibaldi
This place has two specialties: carne en su jugo (meat cooked in its own broth flavored with beans, bacon and green tomatoes) and fast service (so speedy it landed in the Guinness Book of Records in 1996). Neither will disappoint.
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Danés
Dessert lovers flock to this neighborhood bakery that turns out a luscious array of Mexican and European pastries, from dark chocolate-oozing pan de chocolate to fruit-stuffed empanadas.
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Casa Fuerte
This place leans toward fine dining, with an elegant bar, refreshing garden patio and a menu priced like an upscale Mexican restaurant in California. It’s one of the more popular spots in town.
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Cathedral
Guadalajara’s twin–towered cathedral is the city’s most beloved and conspicuous landmark. Begun in 1558 and consecrated in 1618, it’s almost as old as the city itself. And it’s magnificent. Time it right and you’ll see light filter through stained glass renderings of the Last Supper and hear a working pipe organ rumble sweetly from the rafters. The interior includes Gothic vaults, massive Tuscany-style gold-leaf pillars and 11 richly decorated altars that were given to Guadalajara by King Fernando VII of Spain (1814–33). Its crucifix is one of the most subtle and tasteful in Mexico (Jesus isn’t white!). The glass case nearest the north entrance is an extremely popular…
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Museo Regional de Guadalajara
This must-see museum has an eclectic collection covering the history and prehistory of western Mexico. Displays in the ground-floor natural history section include the skeleton of a woolly mammoth. The archaeological section has some well-preserved figurines, along with many fine artifacts of ceramic, silver, gold and other materials.
Upstairs are galleries of colonial paintings, a history gallery covering the area since the Spanish conquest, and an ethnography section with displays about indigenous life in Jalisco. The museum building, the former seminary of San José, is a late-17th-century baroque structure with two stories of arcades and several courtyards holding hidd…
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Basílica de Zapopan
Zapopan’s pride and joy, the Basílica de Zapopan, built in 1730, is home to Nuestra Señora de Zapopan, a petite statue of the Virgin visited by pilgrims year-round. The faithful get extreme during the Fiestas de Octubre, when thousands of kneeling old women crawl behind as the statue is carried here from Guadalajara’s central cathedral. The kneeling pilgrims then make the final trek up the basilica’s aisle to pray for favors at her altar. The Virgin receives a new car each year for the procession, but the engine is never turned on (thus remaining ‘virginal’). It’s hauled by men with ropes.
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Palacio de Gobierno
The impressive Palacio de Gobierno, which houses state government offices, was finished in 1774. It’s a neo-classical building accented by more than a few Churrigueresque decorations and an enormous 1937 mural of Miguel Hidalgo looming over an interior stairway. Hidalgo brandishes a torch in one fist while the masses struggle at his feet. Another Orozco mural in the ex-Congreso (former Congress Hall) upstairs depicts Hidalgo, Benito Juárez and other historical luminaries.
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Cocina 88
Moneyed Guadalajara’s restaurant of choice is located in a renovated turn-of-the-century mansion, where guests choose their cut of beef or choice of fresh seafood from a butcher case and select their wine from the cellar rather than a list. Here, surf and turf has many meanings, such as perfectly seared scallops and filet mignon carpaccio. It’s not cheap, but it isn’t a total budget buster. Seafood and beef are sold at cost and guests are simply charged a kitchen fee per person.
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Parque Agua Azul
This green oasis, a large, leafy park about 20 blocks south of the city center, is a nice place to rehab from too much urbanity. There are benches and lawns to lounge upon and jogging trails aplenty, so bring a good book or some running shoes. And check out the Orchid House – the orchids look their best in October, November, April and May. Bus 60 (or any marked ‘Agua Azul’) heading south on Calzada Independencia will drop you here from the city center.
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Plaza de los Mariachis
Tucked behind the Templo Santa Eduviges near the intersection of Av Juarez and Calz Insurgentes, just south of Mercado San Juan de Dios, is the birthplace of mariachi music. By day it's just a narrow walking street, flanked by charming old buildings and dotted with a few plastic tables and chairs and the odd uniformed mariachi man chatting on a cell phone. At night it can get lively, when patrons swill beer and listen to bands play requests for about around $100 per song.
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El Parián
You can pay your respects to the mariachi tradition in its home city. The Plaza de los Mariachis, just east of the historic center, is an okay place to sit, drink beer and soak in the serenades of passionate Mexican bands. But you'll be happier at El Parián a garden complex in Tlaquepaque made up of dozens of small cantinas that all share one plaza occupied by droves of Mariachi. On the weekends the bands battle and jockey for your ears, applause and cash.
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Mariscos el Social
The chef, known as 'El Socio' started serving his sensational ceviche and delicious shrimp and octopus cocktails, from his stainless steel cart on Glendale and Delicias, 20 years ago. He still works that corner, but he has a sit down café down the block that is equally great. Each week El Socio and his crew serve 350 kilos of shrimp and octopus. So, you know it's fresh. Order a shrimp and octopus plate if you're not into the soupy cocktails.
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Café Madrid
What more could you want from a classic diner? The waiters are in white dinner jackets and the cash register, espresso machines and soda fountains are mint-condition antiques. Come for breakfast. The huevos rancheros (fried eggs on a corn tortilla with a tomato, chili and onion sauce served with refried beans) and chilaquiles (fried tortilla strips cooked with chili sauce) have been favorites for 50 years.
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Rotonda de los Jaliscenses Ilustres
Welcome to Jalisco's hall of fame. The plaza on the north side of the cathedral is ringed by 20 bronze sculptures of the state's favorite writers, architects, revolutionaries and a composer. Some of them are actually buried beneath the Rotonda de los Jaliscenses Ilustres, the round-pillared monument in the center. Before the macho city establishment added a woman to the mix, the rotunda was 'de los Hombres Ilustres.'
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Angels Club
Welcome to Guadalajara’s megaclub. Sure, it’s a gay venue, but chicks dig the mod acrylic tables, cool lounge, throwback beanbag room and the three dance floors blasting electronica, hip-hop and progressive rock, so heterosexual men should shed their inhibitions and mingle with the party people. Saturday nights get wild. Clubbers often leave for breakfast at around 5am and return for sun-drenched fun after hours.
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Plaza Tapatía
The fabulously wide pedestrian Plaza Tapatía sprawls for more than 500m east from Teatro Degollado. Stroll the plaza on Sundays and you will flow in a sea of locals who shop at low-end crafts markets, snack (from both street vendors and cafés), watch street performers and rest on the short walls of gurgling fountains. The plaza dead-ends beautifully at the Instituto Cultural de Cabañas.
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Mariscos Progreso
On weekend afternoons it feels like all of Guadalajara has packed into this patio seafood restaurant. Dressed-up Mexican families slurp ceviche and pass around platters of pineapple shrimp and huachinango al estilo Veracruz (snapper with lime and tomatoes) while mariachis wander from table to table. Oysters are a specialty – you’ll recognize the place by the oyster-shucking hut out front.
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Tortas Ahogadas Cesár
This bare-bones café traffics in one thing and one thing only: tortas ahogadas, Guadalajara’s beloved hangover cure. Baguette-like rolls called birotes are filled with chunks of slow-roasted pork and drenched with searing salsa picante – ask for yours ‘media ahogada’ (half drowned) for less burn; only die-hard chili-heads should request ‘bien ahogada.’
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Tapatio Tour
The ubiquitous double-decker buses of Tapatio Tour ply the city’s most popular sights on a circuit track. While the pre-recorded narration (in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese) is less than inspirational, the tours allow you to hop off and on wherever you wish, making sightseeing a breeze. Buses depart from the Rotonda de los Jaliscenses Ilustres.
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