Villahermosa (“Beautiful Town”), the state capital, is often maligned for not living up to its name, but it has some attractive patches, notably the Parque Museo La Venta, a beautifully done outdoor archeological exhibition of the legendary Olmec stone heads, and the pedestrian-friendly historic downtown. Villahermosa, is a virtually unavoidable road junction: sooner or later you’re almost bound to pass through here on the way from central Mexico to the Yucatán or back, especially if you hope to see Palenque. It’s a large and prosperous city, the longer you stay, though, the more compensations you discover. Quite apart from the Parque La Venta and sudden vistas of the broad sweep of the Río Grijalva, there are attractive plazas, quiet old streets, impressive ultramodern buildings and several art galleries and museums. In the evening, as the traffic disperses and the city cools, its appeal is heightened, and strolling the pedestrianized streets around the Zona Luz, as the historic downtown core is known, or the lively malecón, where everything stays open late, becomes a genuine pleasure. Villahermosa’s modern commercial centre, Tabasco 2000, 2km northwest of the Zona Luz, is a smart area of government buildings, a conference centre and high-end hotels, where oil-industry business travellers hang out.

Most visitors to Villahermosa head straight out to Parque La Venta, the obvious highlight of the city, but the Zona Luz in the old centre also warrants some exploration. The narrow streets contain several absorbing museums and galleries, particularly the Museo de Historia de Tabasco, housed in one of the state’s most ornate buildings. If you have more time, it’s worth heading out to Yumká, an enjoyable safari park and ecological research centre. The oldest part of Villahermosa can be found downtown, in the Zona Luz, where vestiges of the nineteenth-century city (the original colonial buildings were built mostly of wood and have perished) survive on streets busy with shoppers and commerce. Many of the main shopping blocks are now pedestrianized, and the buildings along them are gradually being cleaned up and restored.

At the northern end of the Zona, Parque Juárez, at the junction of Madero and Zaragoza, is bustling in the evenings, as crowds swirl around watching the street entertainers. Facing the plaza on the east side, the futuristic glass Centro Cultural de Villahermosa (Tues–Sun 10am–8pm) presents changing exhibitions of art, photography, and costume, as well as film screenings and concerts stroll by and check out the schedule. West of the park, on the corner of Sáenz and Lerdo de Tejada, the distinctive pink and purple paint on La Casa Siempreviva immediately catches the eye. One of the few fully restored houses from the early twentieth century, it has beautiful tiled floors and arched stained-glass windows. It’s usually open as a gallery with a small café, and is the anchor for a bit of an arts scene in the surrounding blocks. Just a couple of doors down at Sáenz 203 is another old mansion turned into a museum the Casa Museo Carlos Pellicer (Tues–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun 10am–4pm), filled with exhibits related to the life of Carlos Pellicer, a poet and anthropologist born in Villahermosa and the driving force behind the rescue of the stone carvings of La Venta. In the side streets round about are a number of other small art galleries look for signs of current exhibitions. The steps at the far end of Lerdo lead up to the small, tree-shaded Parque Los Pájaros, where budgerigars sing in a large, globe-shaped cage. Heading on south, Villahermosa’s Museo de Historia de Tabasco, at the corner of 27 de Febrero and Juárez (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm), provides a quirky, detailed account of the state’s development. The main attraction, however, is the 1915 building itself, tiled inside and out with colourful patterns from all over Europe and the Middle East each room is different and dazzling. A couple of blocks further south, the grand Palacio del Gobierno looks onto the Plaza de Armas, a patch of green adjacent to a sprawling expanse of concrete. You can poke your head inside the government building to see what temporary exhibition is on, but the building is attractive on its own, with classical columns, turreted corners and a clock tower.

Across the park lies the pretty white Templo de la Concepción commonly called “La Conchita”. The church was first built here in 1799, but this and its successor were each demolished twice over the present building dates only from 1945. Facing this traditional civic layout and overlooking the Río Grijalva is a more modern public space, usually busy in the cool of the evening, when there’s often live music. Steps lead up to the Puente Solidaridad footbridge over the river, overshadowed by a rather bleak square tower, its observation deck unreliably open to the public. Cross the water to reach jetties with boats offering tours up and down the river, or walk back up to the cluster of riverside bars and restaurants adjacent to the Zona, where the Capitán Beuló II offers cruises (Tues–Sun 3.30pm & 6.30pm) check at the Olmeca Plaza. If you’re tempted, incidentally, by glimpsing the impressive-looking spires of Villahermosa’s Catedral del Señor de Tabasco, know that it’s a longer walk than it looks, about twenty minutes up Paseo Tabasco. Once you get there, you’ll find that the spires are just about all that exists the rest of the Gothic building, begun in 1973, is only very slowly being constructed. A fifteen-minute walk south from the Zona Luz, or a short combi ride, brings you to Villahermosa’s cultural centre, CICOM the Centro de Investigaciones de las Culturas Olmeca y Maya. The complex includes a museum, concert hall, a beautiful theatre, a research library and a fine restaurant, along with the centrepiece, the Museo Regional de Antropología Carlos Pellicer Cámara. There are other small museums in the complex (devoted to music and contemporary art), but they don’t merit a trip on their own.

A visit to Villahermosa’s Parque La Venta (daily 8am–4pm) could easily fill half a day. The most important artefacts from the Olmec site of La Venta, some 120km west of Villahermosa, were transferred here in the late 1950s, when they were threatened by Pemex oil explorations. Little is known about the Olmec culture, referred to by many archeologists as the mother culture of Mesoamerica. Just inside the entrance, a display familiarizes you with what little is known about the Olmecs, as well as the history of the discovery of La Venta. The most significant and famous items in the park are the four gigantic basalt heads, notable for their African-looking features. Additionally, there’s a whole series of other Olmec stone sculptures. To conjure a jungle setting, monkeys, agoutis (large rodents) and coatis (members of the racoon family) wander around freely, while crocodiles, jaguars and other animals from the region are displayed in sizeable enclosures. At night, there’s a rather good sound-and-light show (Tues–Sun at 8, 9 & 10pm) that involves strolling from monument to monument, dramatically illuminated amidst the shadowy trees buy tickets and enter at a second gate, about 250m southwest along Paseo Tabasco. Parque La Venta is set inside the much larger Parque Tomás Garrido Canabal, which stretches along the shore of an extensive lake, the Laguna de Ilusiones. There are walking trails here and boats for hire, or you can climb the Mirador de los Águilas, a tower in the middle of the lake. Also in the park, opposite the La Venta entrance, the small Museo de Historia Natural (Tues–Sun 9am–5pm) features displays on the geography, geology, animals and plants of Tabasco, focusing on the interaction between humans and the environment.

To get to La Venta, take a taxi or hop on one of the combis that run along Madero in the city centre (“Tabasco 2000”, “Circuito 1”, “Parque Linda Vista”, “Fracc Carrizal”, among others); they also run along the highway from the second-class bus terminal. Or a taxi from the centre. Beyond La Venta, many of the combis continue down Paseo Tabasco to the Tabasco 2000 area. This extension of the city is an impressive, if soulless, example of modern Mexican architecture, with concrete shopping malls, government buildings and a planetarium, as well as a number of large hotels. Villahermosa’s major ecological attraction, Yumká (daily 9am–5pm, last entry 4pm), named for the Chontal Maya dwarf-god who looks after forests, is an enjoyable combination of a safari park and an environmental studies centre. The park covers more than six square kilometres, so after a guided walking tour of the Tabasco jungle, complete with monkeys, you board a train for a tour round paddocks representing the savannas of Africa and Asia. Elephants, rhinos, giraffes and antelopes are rarely displayed in Mexico and almost never in such spacious surroundings. After a stop at the restaurant, you can take a boat tour of the lagoon, where, in addition to hippos, there are good bird watching opportunities. Yumká is 14km from the centre of Villahermosa, just past the airport. Combis leave regularly from along Amado Nervo behind the market at the top end of Avenida Constitución, and a park-operated shuttle bus departs from Ruíz Cortines, west of Parque La Venta, on weekends at 9am, 10.30am, noon and 1.30pm. Or take a taxi.

Villahermosa’s busy regional airport, the Aeropuerto Carlos A. Rovirosa, lies about 13km east of the centre on the main road towards Escárcega and Palenque. No buses run to the centre from here; a taxi will set you back. The bus stations are pretty close to each other northwest of the Zona Luz: the firstclass station (known as El ADO) is a modern building on Javier Mina just off Ruíz Cortines. There’s luggage storage and an information booth, usually unstaffed. Combis ply the road outside, but to get to the Zona Luz requires changing buses at the market it’s less hassle (and less confusing) to take a taxi. Walking takes around twenty minutes: head east on Merino or Fuentes, opposite the station, for six or seven long blocks, and then turn right (south) at Madero, which will eventually get you to the pedestrianized streets north of the Plaza de Armas. Villahermosa’s main second-class terminal, the Central de Autobuses, is on Ruíz Cortines. To walk into the centre, turn left on Ruíz Cortines, then follow the highway to its junction with Madero and turn right. Villahermosa’s humidity might make you consider taking taxis more frequently. The local bus system comprises a confusing jumble of combi minivans, with the Mercado Pino Suárez acting as the main hub. Fares are a standard. Booths at the airport, history museum, Parque La Venta and ADO bus station can offer only leaflets, and the main state and federal office (Mon– Fri 8am–6pm, Sat 8am–1pm), on Avenida de los Ríos south of Paseo Tabasco in Tabasco 2000, is too far away from the centre to be of much use. To get to Tabasco 2000 from Parque Juárez, walk north along Madero and catch a combi marked “Fracc Carrizal”. Villahermosa is a regional transport hub, with excellent air and bus connections to every corner of the country and state. To get to the ADO bus station from the centre, catch a combi from the malecón heading for “Chedraui”. From here, ADO, OCC and TRT operate dozens of services to all major destinations. The front of the station deals with services originating here; tickets for de paso services are sold in a separate complex behind. Services include Campeche (19 daily), Cancún (19 daily), Emiliano Zapata (4 daily), Frontera (26 daily), Mérida (19 daily), Mexico City (21 daily), Oaxaca (3 daily, in the evening), Palenque (12 daily), Tenosique (13 daily), Tuxtla Gutiérrez (19 daily, most via Puente Chiapas) and Veracruz (23 daily). There are five buses to San Andrés Tuxtla, most in the morning. Most buses into Chiapas travel via Puente Chiapas, which seems circuitous but knocks several hours off the journey. For San Cristóbal, there are just three direct services; it’s often easier to change at either Tuxtla or Palenque. The Central de Autobuses (the main second-class terminal) has buses to virtually everywhere in the state and all the main cities beyond, including Tenosique ten times a day (5am–5.30pm), Teapa every half-hour (5am–9pm; 1hr), and Tacotalpa and Coatzacoalcos (the latter for La Venta; 2hr 30min), on the same schedule. There’s another, more dilapidated second-class terminal near the ADO, off Eusebio Castillo near Zozaya, with frequent buses to Emiliano Zapata, Frontera and Paraíso, as well as Palenque and Escárcega. Several companies run buses to Comalcalco (1hr), the best of which is Comalli Bus, on Gil y Sáenz above Abelardo Reyes, not far from the ADO (4.45am–10pm). Just south of here on Gil y Sáenz, combis run to Nacajuca (for Cupilco; 30min), and pale yellow colectivos go from Castellanos, just east of Gil y Sáenz. Just to the north, off Ruíz Cortines, La Sultana runs a comfortable service to Teapa (5am–10.30pm, every 30min). Shared taxis are usually faster and not that much more expensive: the terminal is just north of the ADO on Abelardo Reyes. Taxis leave when full for Palenque, Paraíso, Frontera and Tacotalpa, taking four or five people, but you won’t have to wait long, at least in the morning. From the airport, flights depart for Mérida, Mexico City, Poza Rica and Veracruz. Continental flies to Houston, Texas, once a day.