Cuernavaca has always provided a place of escape from the city the Aztecs called it Cuauhnahuac (“place by the woods”), and it became a favorite resort and hunting ground for their rulers. Cortés seized and destroyed the city during the siege of Tenochtitlán, then ended up building himself a palace here, the Spaniards corrupting the name to Cuernavaca (“cow horn”) for no better reason than their inability to cope with the original. The trend has continued over the centuries: the Emperor Maximilian and the deposed Shah of Iran both had houses here, and the inner suburbs are now packed with the high-walled mansions of wealthy Mexicans and the expats who flock down here from the US and Canada each winter. Its spring-like climate remains, but as capital of the state of Morelos, Cuernavaca is rapidly becoming industrialized and the streets in the centre are permanently clogged with traffic and fumes. The gardens and villas that shelter the rich are almost all hidden or in districts so far out that you won’t see them. It seems an ill-planned and widely spread city, certainly not easy to get about, though fortunately much of what you’ll want to see is close to the centre and accessible on foot. Food and lodging come at a relatively low price, in part thanks to the large foreign contingent, swelled by tourists and by students from the many language schools. On the other hand, the town is still attractive enough to make it a decent base for heading north to the village of Tepoztlán, with its raucous fiesta, or south to the ruins of Xochicalco. If you are at all interested in Mexican history, it may also be worthwhile taking a trip to Cuautla, where Emiliano Zapata is buried under an imposing statue of himself in Plazuela de la Revolución del Sur.

Cuernavaca is unusual in that it doesn’t have a single main bus station. Instead, half a dozen companies have their own depots in different parts of town. Very frequent buses from Mexico City’s Central del Sur mostly arrive close to the centre, with their Cuernavaca terminal easy to find on Morelos, just north of the centre. Most Pullman de Morelos buses also stop at their central terminal at the corner of Abasolo and Netzahualcoyotl; simply walk up the latter to find yourself at the heart of things. Pullman de Morelos also has a second depot, used by services from Mexico City airport, at Casino de Selva, which is inconveniently sited in the northwest of town (when buying Pullman de Morelos tickets from Mexico City’s Tasqueña terminal, therefore, take a bus to “Centro” rather than “Casino” if you want to end up downtown).

At the heart of the city, the zócalo comprises the Plaza de Armas and the smaller Jardín Juárez, with its bandstand, to the northwest. Around the twin plazas you’ll find a series of cafés where you can sit outdoors under the watchful eye of a huge, black, volcanic-rock statue of Morelos that faces the Palacio de Gobierno, across the plaza. At the eastern end of the Plaza de Armas, behind the statue of Morelos, is the Palacio de Cortés, which houses the Museo Regional Cuauhnahuac (Tues–Sun 9am–6pm). Work on this building began as early as 1522, when, although Tenochtitlán had fallen, much of the country had yet to come under Spanish control the fortress-like aspect of the palace’s older parts reflects this period. Over the centuries, though, it’s been added to and modified substantially first by Cortés himself and later by the state authorities to whom it passed so that what you see today is every bit a palace. The museum is a good one, spacious and well laid out with a substantial section covering local archeology, including some fine examples of stelae and a lovely seated figure from Xochicalco. In fact, the building is partly constructed over the ruins of a small pyramid, which can be seen in the courtyard and elsewhere. There’s also a substantial collection of colonial art, weaponry and everyday artefacts look for the sixteenth-century clock mechanism from the cathedral and a reproduction of a cuexcomate, a kind of thatched granary still found around the state. The museum’s highlight, though, is a series of murals around the gallery, painted by Diego Rivera in 1929 and 1930. Depicting Mexican history from the Conquest to the Revolution, they concentrate in particular on the atrocities committed by Cortés, and on the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who was born in nearby Cuautla, raised most of his army from the peasants of Morelos and remains something of a folk hero to the locals. From the balcony here, there are wonderful, though sometimes hazy, views to the east with Popocatépetl in the far distance.

From the plaza, Hidalgo runs three blocks west to the Catedral de la Asunción, located on the south side of a grassy tree-shaded compound that also contains a couple of other small churches. Founded by Cortés in 1529, the cathedral looks bulky and threatening from the outside (at one stage there were actually cannons mounted along the battlemented roof line), but it has been tastefully refurbished within and stripped almost bare, the modernist approach here an enormous relief if you’ve grown tired of the churrigueresque and Baroque flamboyance elsewhere. Most of the decor is understated, but traces of murals discovered during the redecoration have been uncovered in places they have a remarkably East Asian look and are believed to have been painted by a Christian Chinese or Filipino artist in the days when the cathedral was the centre for missions to the Far East. At one time, the main Spanish trade route came through here, with goods brought across the Pacific to Acapulco, overland through central Mexico and on from Veracruz to Spain. If, after viewing the interior of the cathedral you need your fix of golden exuberance, pop into the Capilla del Santísimo, where there’s a small gilt retablo and Stations of the Cross in charcoal on paper. Until his death in December 2000, Cuernavaca’s bishop was Luis Cervantes, one of the country’s most liberal and outspoken clergymen. Apart from doing up his cathedral, he was renowned for instituting the “Mariachi Mass”, something that has been continued by his disciples. Every Sunday, this service is conducted to the accompaniment of traditional Mexican music and usually attracts large crowds.

South of the cathedral, at the corner of Netzahualcoyotl and 20 de Noviembre, the Museo Robert Brady (Tues–Sun 10am–6pm) occupies a former sixteenth-century convent and holds the Iowa-born artist’s private collection. Brady moved to Cuernavaca in the 1960s, and lived here until his death in 1986. Filled with art from around the world and decorated in an intensely colourful artesanía style, the museum is a fabulous place, with rooms arranged aesthetically, and without regard to history, geography or classification of artistic styles. As a result, what you see is more like a beautiful home than a typical museum, and is well worth a visit. The rooms, arranged around a couple of outside patios complete with sculptures and a delightful pool, are filled with works by most of the greats of twentieth century Mexican art. Even the bathrooms contain works by Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, and there are also pieces by Frida Kahlo, Graham Sutherland, and some particularly good works by Rafael Coronel, including a portrait of Peggy Guggenheim. Everything is labelled in English. Immediately west of the cathedral is the entrance to the Jardín Borda, Morelos 103 (Tues–Sun 10am–5.30pm), a large formal garden adjacent to the mansion of Taxco mining magnate José de la Borda. Though it falls short of the grandeur Borda dreamed of when he commissioned the garden in the eighteenth century, both the garden and the mansion are a delightfully tranquil reminder of the haven Cuernavaca once was. Maximilian and Carlota later adopted Borda’s mansion as their weekend home, though Maximilian also had another retreat in Cuernavaca that he shared with his native mistress, “La India Bonita”.

About twenty minutes’ walk into the suburbs beyond the Jardín Borda is the Salto de San Antón (daily 8am–6pm), a beautiful 36-metre cascade surrounded by vegetation and natural columns of crystallized basalt. Unfortunately, the site has been overdeveloped and is marred by concrete walkways, but it’s still pretty, and the road to the falls passes a number of flower shops and restaurants. Rather more distant 2km southeast of the centre, in the Colonia Acapantzingo is the Jardín Etnobotánico, Matamoros 200 (daily 9am–5pm), whose grounds and collection of medicinal plants are just about worth taking a taxi (or a long walk) to see. As well as the labelled specimens coffee, guavas, roses and medicinal herbs there is a small museum of traditional medicine. Other sites scattered further out in the fringes of the city include the area’s sole significant reminder of the pre-colonial period, the Pyramid of Teopanzolco (daily 9am–5pm). So effectively buried was this site that it took an artillery bombardment during the Revolution to uncover it. Located to the northeast of the centre beyond the train station (which is what the gunners were aiming at), it’s a small temple in which two pyramids can be seen, one built over the other. The pyramid can be reached by city bus #6 from Degollado and Reelección. You don’t need to wander far from the centre to find good places to eat: there’s a particularly fine group of restaurants around the zócalo, and you can get juices and tortas at any time around the bandstand in the Jardín Juárez. Evening activity mostly centres on the Plazuela del Zacate, just a couple of blocks south of the zócalo, where the corner of Galeana and Hidalgo is intersected by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. Most nights there are large groups hanging around this small triangular area, occasionally popping into one of the fashionable cafés and bars for a beer, or sitting outside listening to someone playing on the makeshift stage. There are also free concerts from the bandstand in the Jardín Juárez every Thursday evening at 6pm.

Cuernavaca has been a getaway, especially for the well-to-do, since Aztec times. This has continued to the twenty-first century, with many of these residents including artists, intellectuals, and film stars. For example, María Félix, a Mexican diva, had an opulent, cobalt-blue and papaya-colored villa on Avendia Palmira, along with five other houses. It is known as the Casa de las Tortugas (House of the Turtles) and has Louis XV beds, is adorned with silk brocades, Venetian mosaics, talavera urns, marble fireplaces, sixteenth-century Spanish armor, Italian gilded chairs, and portraits of her created by Antoine Tzapoff. The legalization of gambling for a short time in the 1930s attracted Hollywood visitors such as Rita Hayworth and mafia figures such as Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone from the United States. Cuernavaca was the setting of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano written in 1947. It is a tale of despair and self-destruction due to alcoholism. In the 1950s and 1960s, the city attracted many directors, producers, and actors from Hollywood, many of whom had been blacklisted through the influence of McCarthyism. In the 1960s, the city became one of the centers of the psychedelic movement, attracting many artists, composers, and hippies. Another infamous resident was Sam "Momo" Giancana, a mafia boss from Chicago, who made Cuernavaca his home from 1967 until his arrest and deportation in 1974. He was associated with the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Many of these foreign residents, famous or not, first come as visitors, but then decide to stay. Gene Gauntier, actress and scenarist of silent film, spent the rest of her life in Cuernavaca. She lived in her sister's home, Marguerite Wenner-Gren, wife of Swedish millionaire Axel Wenner-Gren who owned an hacienda Rancho Cortès (today Hotel Racquet). Gauntier died in 1966. The trend continues today, with a large number of retirees, diplomats, business executives, and government officials living in Cuernavaca from all over the world. It still attracts creative and intellectual people. Many of these foreign residents have formed active expatriate groups, such as the Cuernavaca Newcomers Club to offer get-togethers and advice for its members and newcomers to the city. Services for foreign residents include a large network of English-speaking doctors, foreign mass media via satellite, and ATMs networked to U.S. banks. The deposed Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Palevi, during his exile, lived for a short time in Cuernavaca. Cuernavaca also has attracted Hollywood production with parts of the 1969 Western film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being shot in the countryside south of the city, and parts of the classic 1979 comedy The In-Laws, starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, being filmed there. In 1984, John Huston shot there Under the Volcano from Malcolm Lowry's novel, with Albert Finney and Jacqueline Bisset.