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Puebla is one Mexican city that has retained much of its Spanish heritage. Its modern architecture
contrasts sharply with the many colonial buildings, some of which are among the oldest on the North American continent.
The city's plazas, especially the main plaza, are ideal vantage points from which to absorb the beauty of the polychromatic tilework used on a number of the town's buildings.
Puebla has always been an important ceramics center. Even before the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, Indians of the area were accomplished potters, utilizing the nearby clay deposits for the manufacture of earthen kitchenware. After the Conquest, potters from Toledo, Spain, brought their famous Talavera pottery techniques to the newly founded city of Puebla.
Talavera ceramics of varying quality are still available. The best Puebla pottery and dinnerware, artfully designed and beautifully glazed, feature bold geometric designs of conventionalized patterns against a milky white background. Bright blue or yellow appear most frequently in the principal design, often accentuated with secondary patterns in contrasting tones of green, red, or brown. Colored designs applied thickly after glazing give the finished product a somewhat irregular, bas-relief effect that emphasizes its handcrafted appearance. Most of the ceramic manufacturers maintain their own display and salesrooms at or near the place of manufacture. A single family usually operates the small-scale fabrica (work area) in a courtyard; the display or salesroom is often located within the family home.
A profusion of ornate and intricately decorated churches are located in Puebla. Two not to miss are the cathedral, with its carved marble doorways, and the elaborately gilded Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of Santo Domingo.
The historic center, where a great deal of conservation and restoration has taken place, has a prosperous modem dimension too, with its share of fancy boutiques. Cerro de Guadalupe is a peaceful retreat from city noises, as well as the site of a celebrated Mexican military victory and a clutch of museums.