Media, Mediations and Mediators: (Re) Mediating History in the 21st Century

Hotels

It is recommended that you stay in one of the hotels in downtown Puebla and for the proximity to the Congress venue and various tourist attractions as well as various restaurants and points of interest. Price range from 45 to 80 dollars per night (double or single room with breakfast).

 

Recommended Hotels:

Hotel Colonial https://www.colonial.com.mx/

 

Mail contact: gerencia@colonial.com.mx

 

Hotel San Leonardo http://hotelsanleonardo.com.mx/

 

Category **** (high end):

Quinta Real https://quintareal.com/

Hotel Boutique Casareyna https://www.casareyna.mx/

City Express Puebla Centro https://www.cityexpress.com/express/hoteles-mexico/puebla/puebla-de-zaragoza/centro

Hotel NH Puebla https://www.nh-hotels.com.mx/hotel/nh-puebla-centro-historico?campid=8435708&gclid=Cj0KCQjwh6XmBRDRARIsAKNInDGSlqiMwdPlcJGSZ7797Nw73sYngTgTXWCXe_rMbSTjbNEGLbzSkdMaAhsmEALw_wcB

 

Category *** (mid-range):

Hotel Imperial http://www.hotelesdepuebla.com/hotelimperialpuebla.html

Hotel la Alhondiga http://hotellaalhondiga.com/indexbueno.html

Hotel Señorial Puebla https://www.senorialpuebla.com/

 

Tourist info: discover downtown Puebla 

 

Once you reach the downtown area of Puebla, you will understand the historical and artistic relevance of the City of Angels. According to local legend, the city is guarded by angels from the bell tower of the cathedral. From any corner of the city, you can see one of the five volcanoes that have been guardians of their treasures since pre-Columbian times: Popocatépetl, Iztlaccíhuatl, Malintzin, Cuexcomate and Chitlatépetl. Founded in 1531, the city has been a neuralgic place in the history of Mexico: the Iguala Plan, prelude to Independence, was published here; here, President Ignacio Comonfort applied for the first time the Reform Laws to separate the Church from the State; on May 5, 1862 the republican troops defeated the French army of Napoleon III in The Forts of Loreto and Guadalupe; On April 2, 1867, General Porfirio Díaz definitively defeated the Empire of Maximilian of Habsburg; In November 1910 the Serdán Alatriste brothers initiated the armed movement of the Revolution.

An eclectic City, it combines the Spanish Baroque with the French Art Deco. In Puebla, two foreign colonies stand out: Chipilo, whose inhabitants are originally from northern Italy and preserve their dialect and traditions; and the Germans, who settled in the Humboldt Colony, building typical Bavarian buildings, whose best example is the Lutheran church in this colony, and annually celebrate the Oktoberfest.

[*The municipal turist information office in Puebla City is located: between calle Ayuntamiento y Calle 2 Norte, Av. Don Juan de Palafox y. Mendoza, Centro, 72000 Puebla, Pue.]

 

MUSEUMS

Downtown Area

 

José Luis Bello y González Museum

The three thousand 28 pieces of collection tell the story of this property, since it is one of the few public museums in the world that protect an originally private collection in the property itself. These works were first collected by the inheritance of his father José Luis Bello and González, later throughout his life the industrial poblano José Mariano Bello and Acedo. Today the collection is one of the most prestigious in Mexico, bringing together works from America, Europe and Asia, with various genres such as Talavera, feather art, woodwork, glass and metals.

 

Kitchen of the Ex-Abbey of Santa Rosa

The cuisine of the Convent of Santa Rosa is considered the most beautiful in the state, since it was in this place where the mole poblano was elaborated for the first time by Andrea de la Asunción. This place was built in the seventeenth century as a beguinage of Dominicans sisters.

 

 

Museo Amparo

Museo Amparo is a private institution founded in memory of Amparo Rugarcía de Espinosa in 1991 by Manuel Espinosa Yglesias and his daughter Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Rugarcía  through Fundación Amparo with the commitment to preserve, research, display, and disclose Pre-Columbian, colonial, modern, and contemporary Mexican art.

 

 

Cathedral Treasures Gallery

The Gallery Treasures of the Cathedral of Puebla is a space dedicated to the dissemination of the rich patrimonial heritage that protects the Bishopric, as unique pieces of sacred art that have never been exhibited.

 

The Santo Domingo Church and Rosario Chapel

Three blocks from the main square, stands the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, a sober baroque style church that was built between 1571 and 1659 under the order of the Dominicans. It was part of a larger building, the Convent of the Dominicans, whose size reached almost two blocks. By the year 1855, during the reform laws, the complex was drastically changed, as the northern part was demolished and part of their land was expropriated. It is famous for the Capilla del Rosario, that in its day was considered as the eighth wonder of the world.

 

San Pedro Art Museum

1542 began what would be the Real Hospital of San Pedro, stands out for its elegant patio of double arcade of quarry, being the second largest in the city of Puebla. It became over time, a space of innovation and vanguard for medical science, especially in the nineteenth century. In 2002, the current San Pedro Museum of Art was created.

 

La Constancia Museums

Located in the first mechanized textile factory and the first one that used hydraulic power in Mexico to move its machinery, cradle of industrialization in Latin America. The Museums in la Constancia Mexicana Complex is today the headquarters of the Children’s Museum, Vienna’s Music House, Mexican Puppet House, Mexican Music Museum “Rafael Tovar and Teresa”, and the Juan C. Méndez Photo-Library.

 

Museum of the Mexican Revolution

The house museum of the Serdán Brothers allows the visitors to know the initial facts of the Maderista Revolution that overthrew Porfirio Díaz. At the time of the battle on November 18, 1910 the house was inhabited by Carmen, Natalia, Achilles and Máximo.

 

Religious Art Museum of Santa Mónica

The Museum of Religious Art of Santa Mónica is one of the greatest exponents of the monastic life of women in the country and unique in the State of Puebla. Since it has a collection of sacred art from the 16th-19th centuries, conformed mostly by four collections of old female convents of the city of Puebla: Santa Monica (Agustinas Recoletas), Santa Catalina (Dominicas), Mr. San Joaquín and Santa Ana (Capuchinas) and La Soledad (Discalced Carmelites).

 

Palafoxiana Library

On September 5, 1646, Bishop Palafox y Mendoza donated his personal library, composed of five thousand volumes, to the seminarians of the Tridentine colleges, ordering that it could be consulted by anyone who wanted to read or study, for which it is considered the first public library in the Americas. Since then, it was established in the former College of San Juan, in the heart of the city of Puebla.

 

 

Art Chapel (UDLAP)

The building is distinguished by its eclectic French style with an armable structure of green iron and glass coming from France to the port of Veracruz and assembled in Puebla. With a privileged location, Capilla del Arte is the cultural space that has the vocation to form publics in art and generate aesthetic experiences. It is also a place of dialogue between artistic disciplines such as music, film, theater, dance, literature and visual arts.

Casa del Alfeñique Regional Museum

It is called Casa de Alfeñique since 1790 because of its richly decorated façade that seems to be made of sugar paste, egg white and almonds, called “Alfeñique candy” in Spain. The Museum houses a collection of approximately 1,500 pieces, portraying the daily life in colonial Puebla and the nineteenth century. They are distributed in 16 exhibition halls. On the ground floor, a carriage that was used by the presidential cabinet of Porfirio Díaz and a carriage used by personalities of the Clergy.

 

 

Casa de los Muñecos University Museum

Since the creation of the College of the Holy Spirit and throughout its existence, the institution has been enriched with various pieces and scientific devices that have formed the basis of existing schools. There are more than four thousand pieces that make up the collections of paintings, furniture, plasterwork, prints, photographs and watercolors that come from the College of the Holy Spirit, the Academy of Fine Arts or donations.

 

Baroque International Museum

The Baroque was one of the most prolific periods in Western history. During the 17th and 18th centuries it permeated political and economic systems and transformed the conception of nature through innovations in thinking, creating, viewing, and lifestyle.

 

Cholula, the Oldest City in America (1 HOUR FROM Puebla’s Downtown)

Cholula is considered the oldest city in America, inhabited without interruption since its origins. The former Franciscan convent of San Gabriel, one of the oldest in America, is located in this city.  Both the city and the convent rise up next to the Popocatepetl volcano, as if they are trying to reach that snowy giant. Let us not forget the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, built in the sixteenth century by the Spanish and made of domes covered with tiles. It was placed right over the Great Pyramid, the foundation that appears to be a hill rather than an archaeological site. Time, people, and life come and go underneath this site. When visiting this Magical Town, you can explore the Great Pyramid and walk through its maze of tunnels or its outer paths.

Tonantzlintla, the capital expression of the Indigenous Baroque (1 hour from Puebla’s Downtown)

The church of Santa María Tonantzintla is considered as the capital expression of the Mexican Popular Baroque style, made by indigenous people (tequitqui). Declared a Historical Monument on November 11, 1933, its first construction process dates back to the 17th century. Inside of the church, the Tláloc grotto is reproduced as the paradise of Tonantzin (the Virgin) and plasterwork was made with mexicanist iconography. Composed of brown angels, children with tufts, Mexican fruits: capulines, tejocotes, nanches, guavas, zapotes, pumpkins, cocoa, chilies, ears of corn, and horns of abundance, that do not leave a single space free, and that contrast with ornate elements with a gold bath.

 

Tour around Atlixco, the City of Flowers (2 hours from Puebla’s Downtown)

Along the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano, you will find Atlixco, a Nahuatl word that means “water in the valley.” Under the blue sky, across the valley and mountainous landscapes, find out why Atlixco’s 100,000+ inhabitants insist the town has the best climate in the world, and refer to their home as “the city of flowers.”

 

The Biosphere of Tehuacán- Cuicatlán, Heritage of Humanity (2 hours from Puebla’s Downtown)

In the 42nd Meeting of the Committee held in Manama, Bahrain, this reserve with 490 thousand 186 hectares was considered and declared a natural protected area since 1998.  This is important because its inhabitants have found a way and adapted their ways of living with the land. Tehuacán-Cuicatlán is an important reserve that hosts 70 percent of the families of the world flora and an agrobiodiversity center “for numerous groups of plants, such as cacti. Archeologists found the most ancient forms of cultivated maize known here.

 

Tlaxcala (2 hours from Puebla’s Downtown)

The state of Tlaxcala is colorful, full of colonial architecture and vestiges. It is the place where the production of pulque was originated, wich is a drink of Prehispanic origin based on the fermentation of aguamiel (juice of the heart of the maguey). Near the capital is Cacaxtla, an archaeological area discovered on September 13, 1975. It contains murals in a very good state of conservation such as the one titled “Mural de la batalla”. With the newly opened corridor that connects the two archeological zones, you can take a walk of 800 m where you will find Xochitécatl whose name is translated as “Place of the lineage of flowers”; the Pyramid of Flowers, is considered the fourth largest in Mesoamerica, for its broad base, also stands out the Pyramid of the Spiral, which is unique for its circular plan. When Hernán Cortés set out to conquer Tenochtitlan, he forged an alliance with the old-rivals of the Aztec Empire and and soon Cortés would march towards Tenochtitlan with a large Tlaxcalan army at his side.