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PUEBLA |
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East of Mexico City, a fast road climbs steeply, with glorious views
of the snowy heights of Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl, to PUEBLA .
Little more than an hour on the bus from Mexico City, this is the
Republic's fifth-largest city after Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey
and Tijuana, and one of its hardest to pin down. On the whole it's a
disappointment, with the initial impression of industrial modernity
imparted by the huge Volkswagen factory on the outskirts compounded by
the permanently clogged, raucous and rushed streets of the centre. Yet
this is as historic a city as any in Mexico, and certainly in the centre
there's a remarkable concentration of interest - a fabulous cathedral ,
a "hidden" convent , museums and colonial mansions - while the
mountainous country round about is in places startlingly beautiful.
Nevertheless, Puebla is unlikely to tempt you into staying particularly
long and in a couple of leisurely days (or one packed day) you can see
the best of the city and nearby Cholula .
The city itself was founded by the Spanish in 1531 and, rare for this
area, was an entirely new foundation, preferred to the ancient sites of
Cholula and Tlaxcala possibly because there the memories of indigenous
power remained too strong. It rapidly assumed great importance as a
staging point on the journey from the capital to the port at Veracruz
and for the trans-shipment of goods from Spain's Far Eastern colonies,
which were delivered to Acapulco and transported across Mexico from
there. Wealth was brought, too, by the reputation of its ceramic and
tile manufacture (still very much in evidence), which was due in part to
the abundance of good clays and in part to its settlement by Spaniards
from Talavera who brought traditional ceramic skills with them. The city
did well out of colonial rule, and perhaps not surprisingly it took the
wrong side in the War of Independence. As a result, it preserves a
reputation for conservatism and traditional values, not dispelled even
by the fact that the start of the Revolution is generally dated from the
assassination of Aquiles Serdán in his Puebla home.
Military defeat, too, seems to play an even larger part in Puebla's
history than it does in most of Mexico - the city fell to the Americans
in 1847 and to the French in 1863 - but what's remembered is the
greatest victory in the country's history, when a force of some two
thousand Mexicans defeated a French army three times its size in 1872.
To this day, May 5 ( Cinco de Mayo ) is commemorated with a massive
fiesta here, and with a public holiday throughout the country.
The Town
Puebla's zócalo is centre of the numbering system for the ancient grid
of streets and home to the great looming Cathedral , second-largest in
the republic and under construction from 1562 until the middle of the
following century |
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