Set in thick jungle, the ancient Maya ruins of Palenque are for many the finest of Mexico’s Maya sites: less crowded than Chichén Itzá, larger than Uxmal, and with the most spectacular setting. It is a relatively small site you can see everything in a morning but a fascinating one, strongly linked to the lost cities of Guatemala while displaying a distinctive style. Nine kilometres east of the ruins, the rather helter-skelter town of Palenque has 65,000 inhabitants and every facility a visitor might need. An excellent base for exploring the ruins and the waterfalls in the nearby hills, it is lively enough, with music in the turquoise-painted plaza most evenings, but save for a small museum on the plaza, devoted to the textiles of Chiapas it has no real intrinsic appeal. As there are a number of excellent camping sites, cabañas and hotels near the ruins, you may prefer not to stay in town.

The ruins of Palenque occupy the top of an escarpment marking the northwestern limit of the Chiapas highlands. Superficially, the site bears a closer resemblance to the Maya sites of Guatemala than to those of the Yucatán, but ultimately the style here is unique the towered palace and pyramid tomb are like nothing else, as is the abundance of reliefs and inscriptions. The setting, too, is remarkable. Surrounded by jungle-covered hills, Palenque is right at the edge of the great Yucatán plain climb to the top of any of the structures and you look out over an endless stretch of low, pale-green flatland. If you arrive early enough in the day, the mist still clings to the treetops and the howler monkeys are roaring off in the greenery. Founded around 100 BC as a farming village, it was four hundred years before Palenque began to flourish, during the Classic period (300–900 AD). Towards the end of this time the city ruled over a large part of modern-day Chiapas and Tabasco, but its peak, when the population is thought to have numbered some 100,000, came during a relatively short period in the seventh century, under two rulers: Hanab Pakal (Jaguar Shield) and Chan Bahlum (Jaguar Serpent). Almost everything you can see (and that’s only a tiny, central part of the original city) dates from this era.

As you enter the site, El Palacio, with its extraordinary watchtower, stands ahead of you. The path, however, leads to the right, past a row of smaller structures one of them, the so-called Tumba de la Reina Roja (“Tomb of the Red Queen”), is open inside, and you can climb in to see a sarcophagus still in place. This is nothing, though, compared with the structure’s neighbour, the enormous Templo de las Inscripciones, an eight-step pyramid, 26m high, built up against a thickly overgrown hillside. You are not permitted to climb the pyramid, so you just have to imagine the sanctuary on top, filled with a series of stone panels carved with hieroglyphic inscriptions relating to Palenque’s dynastic history. Deep inside the pyramid is the tomb of Hanab Pakal, or Pakal the Great (615–683 AD). Discovered in 1952, this was the first such pyramid burial found in the Americas, and is still the most important and impressive. Some of the smaller objects found inside the skeleton and the jade death mask are on display at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, but the massive, intricately carved stone sarcophagus is still inside; a reproduction is in the site museum. The centrepiece of the site, El Palacio, is in fact a complex of buildings constructed at different times to form a rambling administrative and residential block. Its square tower is unique, and no one knows exactly what its purpose was perhaps a lookout post or an astronomical observatory. Throughout you’ll find delicately executed relief carvings, the most remarkable of which are the giant human figures on stone panels in the grassy courtyard, depicting rulers of defeated cities in poses of humiliation. An arcade overlooking the courtyard held a portrait gallery of Palenque’s rulers, though many of these have been removed.

South of El Palacio and adjacent to the Templo de las Inscripciones, a small path leads to the Templo del Bello Relieve (Templo del Jaguar). More temples are being wrested from the jungle beyond, but the paths are closed, and though the path leads eventually to the ejido of Naranjo, you won’t be permitted to pass much further into the forest without a guide. Even so, clambering around here, it’s easy to believe you’re walking over unexcavated buildings, as the ground is very rocky and some of the stones don’t look naturally formed. The main path then leads across the Río Otulúm, one of several streams that cascade through the site. The Otulúm was once completely lined with stone and used as an aqueduct; the reinforcement also kept the stream from overflowing its banks and undermining the foundations of the surrounding buildings.

The path leads uphill to end in the plaza of what’s called the Grupo de la Cruz, oddly oriented away from Palenque’s more central buildings. The Templo del Sol, the Templo de la Cruz and the Templo de la Cruz Foliada are all tall, narrow pyramids surmounted by a small temple with an elaborate stone roofcomb. All contain carved panels representing sacred rites the cross found here is as important an image in Maya iconography as it is in Christian, representing the meeting of the heavens and the underworld with the land of the living. On the right-hand side of the Templo de la Cruz, God L, one of the gods of the underworld, is depicted smoking tobacco so far the oldest known image of someone smoking. A small path next to the Templo de la Cruz Foliada leads to the only open portion of the South Acropolis, a building with a replica relief carving, covered with elaborate glyphs and a triumphant king.

Following the Río Otulúm to the northern edge of the cleared site, you reach the lesser buildings of the Grupo del Norte and the Juego de Pelota (ball-court), on lower ground across a grassy area from El Palacio. Beyond them, two paths lead downhill towards the museum. One goes down some perilous stairs behind Grupo del Norte, leading to Grupo I and Grupo II, intricate complexes of interconnected rooms. The other path follows the stream as it cascades through the forest and flows over beautiful limestone curtains and terraces into a series of gorgeous pools (no swimming allowed, though). The paths join again just after a suspension bridge crossing the river; eventually the route emerges on the main road opposite the museum. If you don’t want to exit here, and want to make a loop, it’s best to go down via Grupo I and II the steeper route then make your way back up by the other, somewhat easier trail.

Palenque’s excellent museum (Tues–Sun 9am–4.30pm), on the road 1.5km from the site entrance, will give you a good idea of the scale of Palenque, and a look at some of its treasures. Many of the glyphs and carved relief panels found at the site are on display, as are examples of the giant ceramic incense-burners in the form of gods or mythological creatures. An intricate model of El Palacio reveals how it would have appeared in the Classic period with the tops of the buildings adorned with roofcombs. The back wing is devoted to a replica of Pakal’s sarcophagus lid from the Templo de las Inscripciones entrance is restricted to small groups, every 30 minutes or so. One of the most renowned iconographic monuments in the Maya world, the engraved sarcophagus lid depicts Pakal at the moment of his death, falling into Xibalba, the underworld, symbolized by a monster’s jaws. Above the dead king rises the Wakah Kan the World Tree and the centre of the universe with Itzam-Yé, the Celestial Bird, perched on top representing the heavens. So that the deified king buried here should not be cut off from the world of the living, a psychoduct a hollow tube in the form of a snake runs up the side of the staircase, from the tomb to the temple.