Attractions

A world-class museum celebrating Maya culture, the Gran Museo houses a permanent collection of more than 1100 remarkably well-preserved artifacts, including a reclining chac-mool sculpture from Chichén Itzá and a co…

Casa de Montejo is on the south side of Plaza Grande and dates from 1549. It originally housed soldiers, but was soon converted into a mansion that served members of the Montejo family until the 1800s. Today it hous…

This massive mansion was built between 1909 and 1911, though its owner, General Francisco Cantón Rosado (1833–1917), lived here for only six years before his death. The Palacio’s splendor and pretension make it a fi…

The pretty little Parque Santa Lucía has arcades on the north and west sides; this was where travelers would get on or off the stagecoaches that linked towns and villages with the provincial capital. Today it's a po…

Housed in the former archbishop’s palace, the attractive museum holds permanent exhibitions of three of Yucatán’s most famous painters of the Realist and Ruptura periods (Fernando Castro Pacheco, Fernando García Pon…

On the site of a former Maya temple is Mérida’s hulking, severe cathedral, begun in 1561 and completed in 1598. Some of the stone from the Maya temple was used in its construction. The massive crucifix behind the al…

Paseo de Montejo, which runs parallel to Calles 56 and 58, was an attempt by Mérida’s 19th-century city planners to create a wide boulevard similar to the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City or the Champs-Élysées in …

Founded as a livestock ranch in 1683 and converted into a henequén plantation in the 19th century, today Hacienda Teya is a restaurant, hotel and popular wedding venue. The restaurant (mains M$139 to M$345), known f…

In a building built in 1906, the Museo de Arte Popular de Yucatán has a small rotating exhibition downstairs that features popular art from around Mexico. The permanent exhibition upstairs gives you an idea of how l…

One of the nicest plazas in Mexico, huge laurel trees shade the park’s benches and wide sidewalks. It was the religious and social center of ancient T’ho; under the Spanish it was the Plaza de Armas, the parade grou…