Puebla - Culture

Located between the two ranges of the Sierra Madre, not far from volcanic summits, Puebla is situated in a high fertile valley at 2,000 m. above sea level. Southeast of Mexico, it was on the route that connected the capital to the port of Vera Cruz, close to the pre-Hispanic city of Cholula 60 miles southeast of Mexico City is a city known by many names over the years: City of Angels, City of Tiles, Heroic City of Zaragoza. Today we know it as simply Puebla.

Puebla is highly industrialized, its historic downtown remains a Spanish-colonial treasure filled with elegant 17th and 18th century European architecture and art. When you add a temperate climate year-around, friendly and courteous residents (called poblanos) and delicious regional cuisine, Puebla becomes the ideal place to learn Spanish.

Puebla is a large city with several sumptuous 18th-century Baroque churches and a number of convents. Its colonial architecture is famous for its colourful glazes (azulejos). This material, which is used for the cupolas of the churches and the walls of the dwellings alike, ensures the unity of the architectural landscape.

Puebla extends through the Cuetlaxcoapan Valley as a rectilinear grid made up of relatively wide streets. While most of the major arteries follow the regular orientation of the plan, one main street, the "Diagonale de los Defensores de la Republica," crosses the city on a diagonal. Puebla's Zocalo, the central esplanade of the historic area, is considered one of the great achievements of colonial urban planning.

While the 19th-century transformations modified the urban landscape and implied the closure of a number of convents, they also provided Puebla with a civic and domestic architecture of the highest quality. (IV) From the 19th century on, Puebla's influence was due to the high architectural quality of this new city. (II)