Campeche
Patrimonio Mundial / Ciudad Fortificada · Campeche, Campeche
A walled city on the Gulf of Mexico, built in pastel stone and fortified because pirates kept sacking it. Founded in 1540 on the Maya town of Can Pech, Campeche spent more than a century being raided by English, French and Dutch pirates, among them the Frenchman Lorencillo in 1685, until Spain enclosed the whole town in a hexagonal circuit of walls with eight bastions and two surviving gates, completed around 1704. Most of it is still there and you can walk stretches of the ramparts. Inside, a grid of low colonial houses has been repainted in ochre, rose, lime and blue under the UNESCO restoration; outside, two hilltop forts and a long seafront promenade face west, so the sun sets over the water. The best single object is in the Fuerte de San Miguel, where Maya jade funerary masks from Calakmul are displayed. Edzna, a large Maya city with a five-storey palace-pyramid, lies about 55 km inland. The sea is shallow and silty, not a beach destination, and the heat is heavy. It is one of the calmer and less visited state capitals in Mexico.
Plaza de la Independencia, Centro Histórico, Campeche, Campeche, 24000, Mexico
An open city - the walled centre and the malecón are free. Museums, the bastions and both forts keep daytime hours and generally close on Mondays; INAH Sunday free admission at Fuerte de San Miguel and Edzná applies to Mexican nationals and residents only. ⚠ FUERTE DE SAN MIGUEL, OUTSIDE THE WALLS ON A HILL, HOLDS THE CALAKMUL JADE MASKS and is the one most visitors miss. ⚠ THE PUERTA DE TIERRA LIGHT-AND-SOUND SHOW runs on certain evenings - check the schedule posted on the main plaza. ⚠ EDZNÁ IS 55 KM INLAND with little public transport. ⚠ CALAKMUL IS ABOUT SIX HOURS EACH WAY AND IS NOT A DAY TRIP FROM HERE. ⚠ THE SEA OFF THE MALECÓN IS NOT FOR SWIMMING. ⚠ HOURS AND PRICES NOT VERIFIED FOR THIS FILE.