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Published: August 26th 2010
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It is a two hour "first class" bus ride (costing about USD8 each) from Mexico City to Puebla. There is more than one company going to Puebla, but the one we chose (Estrella Roja) had a pretty comfortable, modern bus with aircraft-like, flat screen overhead tv panels. That unfortunately ensured you were subjected to a Mexican movie for the entire journey. Don't forget your Ipod (or equivalent) if you want to avoid that !
The road from Mexico City to Puebla is good and is highway for much of the way. The only issue on the journey was that I had the pleasure of one of the targets of the government's anti-obesity campaign in the seat in front of me. This guy was really big and really tired. He put his seat back and snored loudly for practically the whole journey. However, his size meant we had no desire to argue with him.
Puebla is a smallish City, with an historic old town, colonial buildings and a more modern part, On our arrival we found a secure taxi and headed for a Hotel in the old town. This was the Puebla Plaza Hotel, recommended on TripAdvisor. We'd not reserved,
but there were two room options, one dark & disinfectant smelling room on the ground floor or a more appealing lighter room, with no disinfectant smell and a balcony onto the road. We chose the latter, despite the rather steep USD70 price tag. The Hotel was close to the Zocolo (the main square) and it was only for 2 nights.
Puebla is a famous town in Mexico, not least because its Cathedral adorns the 500 Peso note. This was around the corner from our hotel, so after dumping our bags, we headed there. It is certainly a large and impressive building, as you can see from the photos, and it has numerous altars, 3 Church Organs and some incredible artwork in the ceiling.
We spent probably 45 minutes exploring the Cathedral, but our travels had made us a little weary and we decided to buy a couple of beers and head back to the Hotel for a rest. As we realised later, this was maybe a mistake, since at 6pm on a Thursday they have the official and very patriot 'changing of the flag' ceremony, complete with marching band. As we sipped our beers, we wondered where that
band music was coming from.
The Zocolo, with its arcade of shops and restaurants facing the cathedral on 3 sides, is extremely pretty and remarkably clean too. This is the main place, for tourists at least, to eat and drink. For this reason it also attracts street traders eager to sell you local goods, or wondering minstrels wishing to serenade you - in return for a small contribution of course. In terms of eating, sadly the Zocolo includes some of the US fast food chains but there are a number of reasonable Mexican restaurants and a few Italian ones too - but none that really stand out. Italy is surprisingly well represented, in name at least, in Puebla catering, since branches of 'the Italian Coffee Company' can be found all over town. This is basically a good Starbucks imitation, but like most places in Mexico its coffee is generally weak.
The best place we found to eat in Puebla was "Restaurante El mural de los Poblanos". This is outside the Zocalo, just round the corner from our Hotel. It is a pretty courtyard restaurant, part of a 17th century house, and as its name suggests has a large
mural depicting famous people from Puebla. As we found once we'd sat down, this attracts mexican tourist buses who are treated to a talk on the mural by one of the waiters and a brief stand-up apero. The food and wine is good there and with good service and a nice atmosphere too it is well worth the slightly higher price you pay.
Still on the food front, one thing Puebla does have, which I hadn't seen since my teenage holidays in Spain - are Churros. These are basically tubes of pancake batter deep fried and coated in sugar, cinammon or chocolate. Great when freshly cooked, mediocre when they have been sitting around for a while. Sadly most churros shops served the latter, unless you chose peak production time - which seemed to be when everyone else was tucking into their evening meal.
The central part of Puebla is nice to wander around and admire some of the old architecture. The markets are also a good place to see real local life and we spent a few hours just exploring them and the streets beyond - with no specific destination in mind.
One place we did go
specifically was the train museum. Felicity likes trains, I prefer planes, but we both like a little history and that's what the Puebla train museum has lots of. For a real train anorak this is probably a little part of heaven, but for us it was just interesting to read about and climb aboard the rolling stock that connected the USA and then connected Mexico. Its amazing to think that these huge coal fired cast iron beasts were the forefront of transport technology only 100 years ago, when now clean fuels and ultra-light carbon fibre materials are the order of the day.
Puebla is clearly embracing the move towards clean fuels and it was interesting to see an electric police car plugged into a power point on the Zocolo. A lot of towns could learn from this small one.
We enjoyed our brief stay in Puebla, it is definitely a nice place to stop off at - especially if like us you are taking the long road journey down to the coast. The only negative, was being woken up at 5 o'clock each morning by shovelling outside the hotel. It turns out that our hotel was a bit
of a building site, with bags of cement stacked up in the large courtyard, presumably to be mixed with this 5 o'clock gravel. Given that it is in a really nice building, the Puebla Plaza Hotel could be a lot more than it is - maybe they had realised that too and we had arrived just before the transformation.
So after 2 nights in Puebla, we boarded an ADO bus (again "first class" for a handful of dollars) to begin the 4 and a half hour trip down to Oaxaca City.
Places we have visited and can recommend Restaurant:
Restaurante El mural de los Poblamos,
16 de Septiembre 506
Centro Historico
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Tom Hofmaenner
non-member comment
Puebla
Gee, I wish you had told me you were going to visit Puebla. I used to live, work and go to school there. Well, in Cholula right next to it the town which has a church for every day, has Mexico's largest pyramid, was site of Hernán Cortés' battle turning the rivers red and whose train station was used in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (when they arrived on the Altiplano of Bolivia). Could have told you about so many things to do while there. Being students at the time, one of our repeated excursions was to a tequila distillery where they offered free samples of their goods if you went on the tour, or one of the notorious pulquerias. No ladies allowed in those days, though. But, thanks for posting this. It brought back memories. In my days, the trip from the Distrito Federal took four hours on an Estrella Roja bus, then a second class bus where you ran a good chance of sitting next to a turkey. The railroad was also still running, but that trip took up to 20 hours and you'd probably have managed to get there on foot faster. Autobuses de Oriente (ADO) was definitely a better choice for you to continue -- glad to see they're still alive. I hope you had a comida corrida with mole poblano while there. One of my favorite dishes still today! Continue to have fun on your trip, am really envious.