Get a small but great taste of colonial Mexico!
When, in 1521, the conquistadors of Cortez destroyed the Aztec empire of Montezuma, they founded the colony kingdom of New Spain, destined to last for three centuries, ranging from the current states of the Southwestern United States to the Panama Canal. The introduction of pack animals, from work and farm animals, of elementary metal technical tools such as hoes, ploughs, and wheels, of new crops such as wheat, flax, hemp, coffee, and sugar cane, and the use of fertilizers – all things previously unknown in the New World – gave newcomers unimaginable wealth. However, these wealthy immigrants left with nostalgia for the motherland and their lifestyles. They tried to fill the new colony by building cities in the image and likeness of those left in the homeland.
All over the country, often above the remains of the previous ancient civilizations and most of the time using the same stones, they began to have graceful urban agglomerations with the typical Iberian structure with a square plan, gravitating on an enormous central square – the Zocalo – where the public and religious buildings found space, the sumptuous residences of the nobility and, slowly, also of the nascent middle class of the enriched mestizos. Your comprehensive tour of Colonial Mexico starts there, in Mexico City, and offers you the chance to catch glimpses from the past and see how this fantastic land learned how to create and keep the perfect combination between the old and the new.
If you have more days to explore the Colonial Treasures of Mexico we recommend our tour of Colonial Jewels of Mexico for 7 days where you can enjoy what Mexico offers to the world with its colonial towns most of which are UNESCO Heritage.
Highlights
What’s included
