Once upon a time, the Yucatán had a popular and far-reaching network of passenger locomotives. Today, most of the train stations scattered across the peninsula are little more than ruins. Mérida's, however, has been converted into a museum dedicated to the machines that once chugged through the jungles.
The Spaniards may have conquered the Yucatán with relative ease, but destroying the spirit of the Maya proved a far more difficult task. From the very beginning of the conquest and up into the twentieth century, the Maya fought back against their oppressors, bending but never breaking. The stories of their struggle are told in the Museo de las Guerra Casta, in the village of Tihosuco.
The Calle de los Frailes, or the Street of the Friars, cuts diagonally across Valladolid, completely ignoring the otherwise strict grid-plan. A little fresh, but we'll allow it. This is one of the Valladolid's most historic streets, home to specialty shops and popular restaurants, and it ends at the steps of the San Bernadino Convent.
The largest privately-held collection of modern Mexican art in Mexico can be found in the home of John and Dorianne Venator, in Valladolid. The couple have been indulging their passion for over 35 years and have packed their house, one of the city's most historic properties, with over 3000 individual pieces.
Most of the mansions along the Paseo Montejo have either fallen into a state of disrepair or been converted into banks. But the Casa Montes Molina is a fortunate exception. Owned by the Montes-Molina family for generations, visitors can today tour this amazing house, or even rent it out for special events.
Not only is the Palacio Cantón one of the loveliest buildings on Merida's Paseo de Montejo, but it's also home to one of the city's best museums: the Museo Regional de Antropología de Yucatán.
We had circled the path of the old fortifications which once protected the city, and taken a trip into the jungles of the interior to visit Maya ruins, but it wasn't until our final hours in Campeche that we spent much time exploring the city itself.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the construction of Campeche's fortifications rescued the city from the devastation of unrelenting pirate attacks. Three hundred years later, the surviving walls and fortresses have shifted their focus to tourism, and are presently home to the city's best museums.
The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, found on the nothern outskirts of Mérida, is one of the Yucatán's largest and most popular new museums. From the glories of the past right up into the modern day, the museum takes visitors on a comprehensive journey through the history of the Yucatán's original inhabitants.
One of the Yucatán's defining characteristics is its love of music. From the daily free concerts in the plazas around Mérida, to the Mexican pop blasting out of every tiny shop and the kids walking around with their smartphones on speaker-mode, music is an inescapable fact of life. So we weren't surprised to find a museum dedicated to Yucatecan music, right in the center of town.
