Museum sights in Western Central Highlands
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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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Museo de Artes Populares
This folk art museum is housed on the former site of the Colegio de San Nicolás, arguably the Americas’ first university, founded by Quiroga in 1540. The building was constructed on pre-Hispanic stone foundations, some of which can be seen behind the museum courtyards. Highlights of the impressive permanent collection include a room set up as a typical Michoacán kitchen, cases of gorgeous jewelry, and an entire room filled with retablos – crudely rendered devotional paintings offering thanks to God for saving the owner from illness or accident. Some are quite gory. Also don’t miss the wooden troje (traditional Purépecha house) in the garden.
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Palacio de Gobierno & Museum
Next to the cathedral is the Palacio de Gobierno, built between 1884 and 1904. Local artist Jorge Chávez Carrillo painted the stairway murals to celebrate the 200th birthday of independence hero Miguel Hidalgo, who was once parish priest of Colima. The murals honor freedom fighters, the feminine, the indigenous roots and the beautiful land of Mexico.
There's a great collection of pottery in the first floor museum including some from 1500 BC and check out the case of ten ceramic frogs estimated by UCLA archaeologists to date from 600AD.
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Palacio de Justicia
Across from the regional museum is the Palacio de Justicia, built between 1682 and 1695 to serve as the city hall. Its facade blends French and baroque styles and this place, too, is blessed with stairwell art in the courtyard. An Agustín Cárdenas mural portrays brave and heroic Morelos in action. A small two-room museum shares the history of Michoacán's justice system through old photos and papers (look for the grisly cadaver shots).
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Museo de los Cuatro Pueblos Indios
In the Huatápera, an old colonial courtyard building near the northeast corner of the central plaza, is this three-room museum. Built in the 1530s by Vasco de Quiroga, this relic once housed the first hospital in the Americas. The decorations around the doors and windows were carved by Purépecha artisans in a Mudejar style. The museum showcases regional artesanías, like ceramics from Capula and lacquerware from Quiroga.
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Museo del Estado
The Michoacán state museum details Michoacán’s journey from pre-historic times to first contact with the conquistadors. Pre-Hispanic arrowheads, ceramic figures, bone jewelry and a shimmering quartz skull can be found downstairs. Upstairs are first-person accounts of how force-fed religion coupled with systematic agricultural and economic development tamed the region’s indigenous soul.
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Textile Factory
This great old textile factory from the 19th century is essentially a living museum. Hand-loomed and hand-dyed bedspreads, tablecloths and curtains are made here from pure cotton and wool and are available for sale. The original machines are more than 100 years old and are still used. Call ahead for a tour and see the entire weaving process from cotton bale to finished tablecloth.
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Museo de Arte de Zapopan
One block east of the southeast corner of Plaza de las Américas, Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ) is Guadalajara’s best modern-art museum. Four sleek minimalist galleries hold temporary exhibits, which have included works by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and a whimsical showing of Anthony Browne prints that saw the top floor covered with turf, sticks, stones and sand.
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Museo Regional Michoacano
Just off the plaza, the Museo Regional Michoacano is housed in a late-18th-century baroque palace where you can view a nice variety of pre-Hispanic artifacts, colonial art and relics. There's also another evocative Alfredo Zalce mural, Cuauhtémoc y la Historia, on the stairway. It offers a taste of Mexican history with a good v. evil twist.
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Museo Regional de Historia de Colima
The excellent Museo Regional de Historia de Colima has an extensive collection of well-labeled artifacts spanning the region’s history, from ancient pottery to conquistadors’ armor to a 19th-century horse-drawn carriage. Don’t miss the ceramic xoloitzcuintles (Colima dogs) or the walk-through, mock tomb excavation.
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Pinacoteca Universitaria Alfonso Michel
This beautiful museum, in a 19th-century courtyard building, offers four halls filled with surrealist art. Included are a permanent collection of paintings by Colima's Alfonso Michel - a cross between Picasso and Dalí and works by other Mexican artists, like Alfonso Cabrera and Richard Rocha.
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Museo Universitario de Artes Populares
Folk art lovers will be in heaven at this university about 1km north of Plaza Principal. On display is a stellar collection of masks, mojigangas (giant puppets that dance in parades), musical instruments, baskets and wood and ceramic sculpture from every state in Mexico.
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Museo Regional de la Cerámica
The Museo Regional de la Cerámica is set in a great old adobe building with stone arches and mature trees in the courtyard. It has a nice collection that exhibits the varied styles and clays used in Jalisco and Michoacán. Explanations are in English and Spanish.
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Museo de las Artes
In the back of the Paraninfo is the Museo de las Artes, which houses temporary exhibitions that will scratch your modernist itch once you’ve overdosed on arte clásico.
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Casa-Museo José Clemente Orozco
During the 1940s, the great tapatío painter and muralist, José Clemente Orozco (1883−1949), lived and worked in this house, which now displays various sketches and other artifacts.
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Museo Pantaleón Panduro
Miniature figurines, as well as enormous, lightly fired urns and other ceramic crafts from around Mexico, are on display at the Museo Pantaleón Panduro.
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Museo de la Ciudad
This museum has some nice historical details, such as colonial armor, spears and locks, swords and mandolins that tell the history of Guadalajaran laymen.
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Museo Regional de Tonalá
The carved wood and ceramic masks at the Museo Regional de Tonalá are outstanding. Many are decorated with real animal teeth and horsehair.
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Museo Nacional de la Cerámica
The Museo Nacional de la Cerámica houses an eclectic array of pots from all over Mexico.
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