Zacatecas is overflowing with ornate colonial architecture and absorbing museums, ranking alongside Guanajuato as one of the Bajío’s finest destinations the obvious wealth projected by its fine stone buildings makes this another city that seems plucked straight out of classical Spain. Today Zacatecas is booming once more, its business and light industry boosted by the increasing flow of traffic between Mexico and the US. The town’s prosperity has ensured a strong vein of civic pride, and many of the old colonial buildings have been lovingly restored. The granting of UNESCO World Heritage status to the historic center has helped maintain its rich and sophisticated air, and forced new growth south of town on the road towards Guadalupe.

Zacatecas hosts several exuberant festivals: Festival Cultural Zacatecas (March/April). For two weeks around Semana Santa the city celebrates this enormous arts festival, with daily events all over town including everything from high-quality Mexican rock acts and even a few foreign bands to folkloric dance, opera and ballet. Most events are free. Festival Zacatecas del Folclor International (late July–early Aug). Mexico’s top international folk festival with around fifty nationalities represented, mostly performing in the plazas around the centre. La Morisma de Bracho (weekend closest to Aug 27). Festival with up to 10,000 people engaging in mock battles between Moors and Christians, acted out on the Cerro de la Bufa. Feria Nacional de Zacatecas (Sept, first two weeks). Zacatecas’s principal fiesta features bullfights and plenty of traditional carousing. The activity happens at La Feria, 3km south towards Guadalupe.

Zacatecas is dominated by the Cerro de la Bufa (2612m), with its extraordinary rock cockscomb crowning the ridge some 237m above the Plaza de Armas; at night it’s illuminated, with a giant cross on top. A modern Swiss cable car connects the summit with the slopes of the Cerro del Grillo an exhilarating ride straight over the heart of the old town. The highlight is undoubtedly the ornate cathedral, from which all other main sights are within walking distance. The Jardín Independencia is the city’s main plaza, where people gather in the evenings and wait for buses the Casa Municipal de Cultura nearby hosts art and cultural events. West of the Jardín Independencia is the Alameda, a thin strip of stone benches, splashing fountains and a bandstand that makes a cool retreat from the heat of the day. Adjacent, you’ll find the charming oasis Jardín de la Madre, distinguishable by its fountain featuring a beatific maternal figure and well-tended flora.

Catedral Basílica (daily 7am–1pm & 3–9pm) is the outstanding relic of the city’s years of colonial glory: built in the pink sandstone typical of the region, it represents one of the latest, and arguably the finest, examples of Mexican Baroque architecture. It was completed in 1752, its carved with a wild exuberance unequalled anywhere in the country. The interior, they say, was once at least its equal furnished in gold and silver, with rich wall hangings and a great collection of paintings. On each side of the cathedral there’s a compact plaza: to the south a tiny paved plazuela, Plaza Huizar, which often hosts lively street theatre and impromptu musical performances, and to the north the formal Plaza de Armas, surrounded by more colonial buildings. On the east side of the latter plaza, the Palacio de Gobierno (Mon–Fri 9am–8pm; free) was built as the residence of the Conde Santiago de la Laguna in 1727 and subsequently bought by the state government. On the south side of the cathedral, the Mercado González Ortega is a strikingly attractive market building, opened in 1889. It takes advantage of its sloping position to have two fronts: the upper level opening onto Hidalgo, the lower floor with entrances on Tacuba. Converted into a fancy little shopping mall, it’s now filled with tourist shops and smart boutiques, as well as a superb wine store. On Hidalgo opposite the mercado, the Teatro Calderón is a grandiose Italianate theatre completed in 1891. At the southern end of the mercado, broad steps help turn the little Plazuela Goitia into a popular place for street theatre.

Nightlife in Zacatecas, especially at weekends while the university is in session, is a boisterous affair, with much of the early-evening action happening on the streets there always seems to be some procession or a band playing, usually in the small plazas at either end of the Mercado González Ortega. There’s often tequila, and you may be offered some, though it is as well to come equipped with your own tipple. Tag on as you hear the procession go by, or head to the Plaza de Armas around 9pm to catch the start. Either way, a callejóneada is great start to an evening on the town, when you can visit some of the numerous bars and clubs that dot the downtown landscape.

The Teleférico (cable car; daily 10am–6pm) is on the slopes of the Cerro del Grillo, near the back entrance to El Edén. It’s an easy climb up from San Agustín, or you can take bus #7 right to the door. The views down on the houses are extraordinary. From the Cerro de la Bufa station it’s a brisk uphill walk to the pristine Templo de Nuestra Señora del Patrocinio, an eighteenth-century chapel with an image of the Virgin said to perform healing miracles. The main viewpoints are here, offering a jaw-dropping panorama of Zacatecas and its surroundings, though this is not the actual summit: only one of the three peaks is accessible, El Chico (the smallest), topped by the Observatorio Meterologico, another short walk uphill from the chapel. The observatory dates back to 1906, and though you can’t go insides the mesmerizing views are worth the climb. Back down next to the chapel, the Museo de la Toma de Zacatecas (daily 10am–5pm) honours Pancho Villa’s spectacular victory here in 1914, also commemorated with a dramatic equestrian statue of the general outside. Behind the Villa statue two paths skirt around the base of La Bufa to the Mausoleo de los Hombres Ilustres, where Zacatecanos who have made their mark on history have been buried since the 1940s.

The Mina El Edén, or Eden Mine (daily 10am–6pm), is perhaps the most curious and unusual of all Zacatecas’s attractions. The main entrance to the old mine, from where you can explore some of the sixteenth-century shafts in the heart of the Cerro del Grillo, is in the west of the city, up a road behind the modern IMSS Hospital General de Zona No. 1. This super-rich mine produced the silver that gave Zacatecas its wealth, and though little is dug up around the town today, Fresnillo, 60km to the north, has the world’s largest silver mine, which sometimes produces seven tons of the precious metal a day. Here a well-presented museum displays rocks from around the world, including impressive geodes and fossilized ammonites and trilobites. You’re then taken on a fairly sanitized look at the mine workings subterranean pools, chasms crossed on steel bridges and scattered machinery, all complete with colourfully lit mannequins dressed as miners. The entire hill is honeycombed with tunnels, and in one of them a lift has been installed that takes you up to the slopes of the Cerro del Grillo, about 200m from the lower station of the cable car. It is also worth returning in the evening to dance the night away at La Mina Club. To reach the mine, take bus #7 from the Hidalgo and Juárez to the hospital, or walk, taking in a pleasant stroll along the Alameda followed by a brief climb.