3-Day Tour: Taxco & Cuernavaca, Teotihuacan & Guadalupe Shrine, Puebla & Cholula

DAY 1: VISIT TO CUERNAVACA AND TAXCO

The first day will include visits to Cuernavaca and Taxco. Enjoy Cuernavaca, the City of Eternal Spring, famous for its rose growing, cathedral, and museums. Cuernavaca is a popular city for maintaining a second home away from Mexico City. A visit to the Cathedral of the Assumption, built in the 1600s, is the highlight of this stop.

From Cuernavaca, the tour continues to the city of Taxco, a former silver mining town high in the mountains. The shops are filled with beautiful silver jewelry, trays, tea sets, and decorative items. The star of Taxco is the Church de Santa Prisca. Outside of the church is a wonderful market filled with stalls selling all manner of things. Taxco is famous for food such as pozole, barbequed goat, and a local dish of thin marinated strips of beef.



DAY 2: TEOTIHUACAN AND THE BASILICA OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

On the second day, you will view the ruins of the first true metropolis of the Western Hemisphere that arises out of a grassy plain northwest of México City and visit the archaeologic site of Teotihuacán, which is considered to be the first urban city in Mesoamerica before the Spanish invasion and the largest concentration of inhabitants of the classic Mesoamerican period.



On arrival, you will first see a demonstration of the ancient process of making pulque, a traditional alcoholic drink in México. You will enjoy a tasting of pulque and an opportunity to visit the arts and crafts center where local obsidian and jade is fashioned into jewelry, game boards, and decorative items, plus a selection of native clothing. There will be time for a buffet lunch, the cost of which is not included in the price of the tour.

A visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most important basilica in México, is the next stop. A guide will escort you to the Information Center of the Basilica, where you can buy representations of the most significant events of the miracles of the Virgen of Guadalupe.



The guide will then explain various points of interest, such as:

• El Baptisterio--The Baptistery Consecrated in 1991

• Capilla del Pocito-- The Chapel of the Well 1791

• Capilla del Cerrito--The Chapel of the Hill, or Hill of Tepeyac, where the peasant Juan Diego saw the image of the Virgen of Guadalupe, 1749

• Parroquia de los Indios-- The Parish of the Indians 1649

DAY 3: PUEBLA AND CHOLULA

Driving west through Cholula and Santa Maria de Tonantzintla, located in a green valley surrounded by Mexico’s tallest volcanos--Pico de Orizaba, Popocatepetl, and Iztaccíhuatl, known as the Ring of Fire—and the Great Pyramid of Tepanapa topped by the Cholula’s Church of Our Lady of the Remedies, you arrive in Puebla, famous for its colonial architecture and talavera ceramics.



Enjoy a walking tour of Puebla’s historic center, including the Plaza de Armas, the Church of Santo Domingo with its spectacular Chapel of the Rosary, the talavera ceramics market, and the artists’ neighborhood. Sample candies typical of the region, such as camote (sweet potato) and borrachos, and other exotic foods such as sesame seed mole and, when in season, chiles en nogada (bell peppers stuffed with a beef filling and a walnut sauce). There will time for lunch, the cost of which is not included in the price of the tour.

Departure

-Taxco, Cuernavaca: 9am

-Teotihuacán, Basílica: 8am

-Puebla, Cholula: 9am



Duration of the tour:

-Taxco, Cuernavaca: 12 hours

-Teotihuacan, Shrine: 9 hours

-Puebla, Cholula: 12 hours



Languages

Spanish and English