Campeche

Campeche gets a fraction of the visitors that Mérida receives, and I’ve never been able to fully explain why. The historic center is UNESCO World Heritage, the sea walls are among the best-preserved in the Americas, the food is its own distinct cuisine, and the pace is so unhurried it takes a day to stop expecting things to be faster. Maybe it’s the lack of a famous ruin nearby. Maybe it’s the heat, which is humid and coastal rather than the dry interior heat of Mérida. Whatever the reason, Campeche remains one of the places in Mexico I return to because it feels like something that won’t stay this way forever.

The Walled City

In the 17th century, Campeche was the wealthiest port on the Gulf of Mexico, which made it an irresistible target for pirates — Dutch, English, French — who sacked it repeatedly until the colonial government finally built a defensive wall around the entire city center. That wall still stands. You can walk most of its perimeter on a raised promenade, passing through bastions that are now small museums, and look back at the tightly packed facades in their reds and yellows and blues and greens, and then look outward at the Gulf.

The houses in the centro are painted in a deliberate palette — each one a different color, the colors apparently regulated or at least coordinated — and the effect on a sunny morning, with the light bouncing between facades, is overwhelming in the best sense. I photographed nothing for the first hour because I couldn’t decide where to point a camera.

The Malecón and the Sunsets

The malecón — the seaside promenade — runs along the Gulf outside the city walls for several kilometers. In the late afternoon it fills with locals: families on rented tandem bikes, teenagers, couples on benches, ice cream vendors. The sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico from Campeche are categorically excellent — the sky goes through stages of pink and amber and finally a deep coral that reflects off the flat, shallow water until it’s hard to tell where the horizon is.

I’ve sat on this malecón three or four times now. It’s one of those evening rituals that justifies the entire trip.

The Food

Campechano cuisine is distinct from mainland Yucatecan cooking, built around the Gulf’s seafood. Pan de cazón is the signature: layers of corn tortillas stacked with baby shark (cazón), black beans, and habanero tomato sauce, then baked or assembled into a kind of savory cake. It sounds unusual and tastes extraordinary. The seafood cocktails — campechana — serve shrimp, octopus, and oysters in a spiced tomato broth with avocado and are available at stands along the malecón and in the central market.

The Mercado Principal is loud and dense and sells everything. The cooked food section is in the back, where women in aprons behind large clay pots serve the food that the city actually eats: poc chuc, panuchos, sopa de lima, and the fish prepared however it arrived that morning from the Gulf.

The Forts

Two forts guard the approaches to the city on the hill above — Fuerte San Miguel to the south and Fuerte San José to the north. San Miguel houses the Museo de la Cultura Maya, which holds some of the most extraordinary Maya funerary objects I’ve seen, including jade burial masks that were unearthed at Calakmul. The artifacts are dramatically lit in darkened rooms and the context provided is detailed without being exhausting. I’ve spent two hours here on different visits and each time found something I’d missed.

When to go: November through March is ideal — temperatures are lower, the humidity eases, and the festivals in December (including a major one around the Feast of the Immaculate Conception) bring the city to life in a way that feels local rather than tourist-facing. Avoid the height of summer if humidity is a concern.