The Capital of Yucatan Region

Leaving behind the Mexico City of the country and all the beautiful places we’ve been around, we move to our next base: Merida, the capital city of Yucatan region. Our main aim for a base here? Get to visit two of the major and most important Maya cities: Chichen Itza and Uxmal. Sadly for us, we could not count with more days to keep exploring the many other Maya cities in this region, therefore we had to choose and decided for the most important ones.

Merida has retained one of the finest collection of colonial buildings in the country and hosts the very first cathedral to be built in the New World. Of course no need to mention here that the distribution of the city follows the same pattern as any other in Mexico, where the Zocalo is the main square with the cathedral and City Hall along the sides and the streets follow a strict grid pattern. Wherever you walk is another sight, no wonder it is one of the finest colonial old towns in Mexico to be listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Now the main question is how many days you do need here. Let me tell you, for the city itself you don’t need more than one. It is small enough to make a one day visit perfect. But since coming to Merida is mostly because of visiting the Maya cities around, then it is really when you need to calculate your time, which cities you want to visit, and how many. We spared 2 days to visit 2 sites. Gladly I would have stayed longer and keep visiting as many others as possible but my plan for this trip included 3 other countries, therefore I was limited in time. (more…)