• Mexico Guide

  • Introduction to Mexico
  • Weather
  • Things not to miss
  • Getting around
  • Entry requirements
  • Money
  • Public holidays

• Explore Mexico

  • Baja California and the Pacific Northwest
  • The north
  • The Bajío
  • Northern Jalisco and Michoacán
  • Mexico City
  • Acapulco and the Pacific beaches
  • Veracruz
  • Oaxaca
  • Chiapas and Tabasco
  • The Yucatán

• Cities

  • Acapulco
    
  • Cancún
    
  • Guadalajara
    
  • Mexico City
    
  • Monterrey
    
  • Oaxaca
    

Mexico Guide

The Bajío

Zacatecas

• Accommodation
• Eating
• Nightlife and entertainment

ZACATECAS, almost 2500m up and crammed into a narrow gully between two hills, packs more of interest into a small space than almost anywhere in Mexico and ranks, alongside Guanajuato, as one of the Bajío's finest colonial cities. Its beauty enhanced by the harshness of the semi-desert landscape all around, it remains much as the British Admiralty's Handbook of Mexico described it in 1905: "irregular", its streets "very narrow, steep, and frequently interrupted by stone steps" and "much exposed to winds blowing through the gorge". Those same winds still gust bitterly cold in winter, and even though many of the once cobbled streets are now paved and choked with traffic, the town is otherwise little changed.