San Luis Potosí

Situated to the north of the Bajío’s fertile heartland, the sprawling industrial city of San Luis Potosí boasts a rich colonial centre crammed with solid stone buildings reminiscent of a classical Spanish town, and it’s an easy (flat), likeable place to explore. The city was founded as a Franciscan mission in 1592, but it wasn’t long before the Spanish discovered significant deposits of gold and silver in the country round about and began to develop the area in earnest. They added the name Potosí (after the fabulously productive mines in Bolivia) in the expectation of rivalling the original, and though this did become a wealthy town, that hope was never fully realized. Unlike its erstwhile rivals, however, San Luis is still prosperous – most of the silver is gone but working mines churn out zinc and lead – with a considerable modern industrial base. As a result, San Luis, while preserving a little-changed historic heart, is also a large and lively modern city.