1. The Historical Center
In 1680, the army engineer Martin de la Torre sent his discourse about "the plan for fortifications which the city of Campeche, in the province of Yucatan, needs" to Emperor Charles II of Spain. De la Torre explained that without fortifications the city was open to invasion and greed at the hands of her enemies because she all but lacked a soul, which would be a wall and other fortifications.
How well the inhabitants of Campeche knew what it meant to be exposed! The list of terrors the city had experienced was all but too long. Two years before De la Torre's discourse the pirate Lewis Scott had sacked the city taking numerous hostages, and eight years earlier Laurent Graff, the famous "Lorencillo", had done the same to the St. Roman district. Pirates, corsairs and freebooters were at large all over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Cruising the ocean at will that reached right into the heart of Campeche, they always kept an eye on the still small city which had turned into one of the main ports of New Spain - hence, De la Torre's call for fortifications.
Our tour through the historical center of Campeche touches nine bulwarks and fortifications and several other sites of interest.
San Carlos Fortress
Dedicated to the king at that time: Carlos II. Its surface is around 840 m, and today it houses the City Museum.
Santa Rosa Fortress
Its name was inspired by the first sanctified American, Rosa from Lima. Its surface was 1157.45m, now day it is a painting museum
San Juan Fortress
Its name is enlaced to San Juan de Dios, founder of the Juaninos order. This is an example of work of arts of engineering with a surface of 764 m.
San Francisco Fortress
Its name celebrates the order of San Francisco, with an original surface of 1342m2. In 1889 one of its parts was demolished, dividing the fortress in two. Nowadays, one of its parts is used as the library "Gustavo Martinez Alomia".
San Pedro Fortress
Dedicated to the founder of the church and first Pope. 780 m of surface, built in 1702. In it the Court of the Inquisition was established, and today it is an information centre.
Santiago Fortress
Named after the Saint Protector of Spain. It was finished in 1704 and demolished in the beginning of this century. What we see now is only a similar construction of it. It is really different from the original, housing today the Didactic Botanic Garden.
Soledad Fortress
Named after our Madam of Loneliness. With a surface of 993 m, nowadays it serves as the Museum of Stele.
San Jose El Bajo Fortress
The eighth fortress was names after the husband of Virgin Mary. It was located in one of the parts where the High School Justo Sierra Mendez is placed, and was one of the first fortresses demolished in the beginning of the first decades of this century.
The wall had four entrances. The most important were the sea side door and the land side door. This last one was opened by Don Antonio Figueroa y Silva in 1727, and was well protected with eight canons and fosses.
San Jose Fortress
It was built by the King Lieutenant, finished on August 9th, 1792. Its surface is around 1828.29 m2.
San Miguel Fortress
Built over 1 km from Lerma, occupies a surface of 3858.37 m2. Here President Santa Ana installed the headquarters when he attacked Campeche in 1842. Nowadays, one of its main attractions is the hydraulic system.
House of the King Lieutenant
Four of these houses were built in the city, with built-in columns in the façade, one on each side of the main entrance. In them representatives of the Governor of the Peninsula lived. They are located downtown of the Historical Centre on 59th, 14th and 51st street.
House 6
Located on 57th street, between 8th and 10th street, downtown. This construction dates back to the XVII century and has been modified to remember the lifestyle of the people from Campeche in the XIX century. The entrance is free and it has a restaurant and a bookstore. It also is used as an Information Centre.
Weekly activities are organized for the public such as "The Campechanas' Serenade" on Thursdays night, and "Campechana Lottery" on Saturdays evening.
Mansion Carvajal
On 10th street you can find one of the most beautiful samples of the XIX century civil architecture. It belonged to Mr. Rodrigo Carvajal Iturralde, who also owned the Hacienda Uayamon. Nowadays it has been restored. Its main characteristics are the Moorish arches and a great marble stairway.
Campeche's Main Plaza
Though the date of the construction is uncertain, it is possible that it was built in the end of 1540 or beginning of 1541, when the Villa of San Francisco was founded. The Plaza became the main area of the Spanish population that settled approx. one mile from the Indian population of Ah Kim Pech.
During the colonial time it was known as the Major Plaza, after a while is was named Plaza of the Constitution and finally in 1826 it was named Plaza of the Independence.
At the end of the XIX century the plaza had three streets of 'rounds': the small one where children used to play or parents would walk to take care of the kids; the second one, or the middle one, youth and grown ups would walk by, and finally the main part was used by couples in love since it was away form the uproar.
The Plaza has had several changes through years, but it has recovered the image that it used to have at the beginning of the XIX century with a central kiosk and its ironwork fence.
Municipal Palace
In 1846, Dr. Vicente Mendez, a Presbyterian, founded a well known charity hospice which was located on Municipal Square and served the public until 1874. From 1892 for more than 65 years it was occupied as a barracks, having undergone the necessary changes.
Campeche's Library
In 1989, the secretary of national defense allowed it to be used as the City Hall of Campeche, after a process of restoration and rehabilitation. When in 1962 the colonial cycle ended, giving birth to modernism, the Municipal and Government Palaces (buildings) were demolished, and nowadays the library and costumes are located here.
In the year 2000, when the reconstruction of Campeche's Library began, two of the main objectives were to accomplish cultural richness and technology focused on the community, and the recovery of the original structure of the Plaza. Recovering the building that during the colonial times used to belong to the political powers, today it is offering recreational and didactic space for the youth.
Light and Sound Show - Land Gate Tour Around The Pier
Built in 1732, the Land Gate is a lasting tourist attraction. As the only original entrance to the city remaining from the defense system, the Land Gate is one of the distinguished symbols of the Campeche capital. The gate has preserved its imposing splendor with its gunboats and casemates or houses, still intact, where the powder was stored. Likewise you still find the embrasures, which are the openings in the walls where soldiers discharged their rifles at the enemy. There are also still the defenses constituted by a slope in form of a triangle with a moat four meters wide and three meters deep. This moat completely surrounded the structure which had no water but spikes crossed with sharp points. Nowadays, a light and sound show transports you back into the glorious times of the Land Gate. The spectacle explains the city's history, the rescue of the French canon, the pirate attacks and the history of the Campeche State Escutcheon. Folkloric prints of the escutcheon are handed out at the end of the spectacle.
Schedule: Tuesday, Friday and Saturday 8.30 p.m., English and Spanish.
2. Churches
The following tour includes eight sites of interest, among them churches in the center and the suburbs of Campeche.
Growing steadily from the end of the 17th to the end of the 18th century, the fortification wall, which dates back to colonial times, marked with stones a division of the city. The inner city is known as the Spanish Town, while the outer one is formed by "barrios" (neighborhoods) where the majority of the native population lived. Leading from each of the gates of the walled-in area, roads connected the center to the outer precincts, some of them founded in the 15th century such as Saint Francis, Saint Roman, while others were registered in the 16th century like Santa Ana Guadalupe and Santa Lucia.
By the end of the 18th century, Campeche was one of best-defended places in the Americas after the city had amplified the fortifications with redoubts and batteries as proposed by the Infantry Brigadier and engineer Agustín Crame who arrived at the port around 1779.
From the beginning of the Spanish colonization, the Mayan inhabitants of Campeche were kept apart from the Spanish colonizers. They were settled half a league to the northeast of the main square at the entrance to the convent of San Francisco. San Francisco is considered the first place on Mexican territory where, in 1517, a mass was celebrated. The Franciscan church was built in the middle of the 16th century. The neighborhood of San Francisco is one of the primordial ones outside the city walls, along with those of Guadalupe, Santa Ana, and San Roman.
Campeche's Cathedral
Located in the Main Square on 55th street between 8th and 10th street downtown (Historical Center). In 1540 Francisco de Montejo´s son ordered the construction of a small church in honor of the Conceptions Virgin.
This construction was built with lime and pebble, with palm roof. On October 22, 1760, the construction of the Jesus Nazareno Chapel and the water side tower ended. At the Española (the Spanish), the first public clock was placed, with a written stone shield, which was destroyed after the Independence of Mexico. Between 1849 and 1850 the land side tower was built, known today as "La Campechena". The beautiful clock placed on it in 1916 still works. The Chapel is located in the garden. On the right side of the church the bishopric building is located.
Guadalupe Church
Located in the neighborhood of Guadalupe on 47th street, between 10B and Miguel Aleman Avenue, this old temple was the first to be dedicated to the virgin Guadalupe, after the one in the Tepeyac. In 1575 Pedro Martin of Bonilla began the construction of the church. It was finished and consecrated in 1660.
Church Of San Roman
The church of San Roman is located on Bravo Street between 10B and 12th street in front of San Roman's park.
This church was constructed in 1563 and named in honor of San Roman Martyr. At the beginning the mansion of San Roman was humble, as well as the one of the Black Christ inside. One can see the wooden sculpture of the Black Christ, which was placed there by the people of Campeche in 1565, ordered by Juan de Cano y Cocoa Gaitan, who brought the image, which was carved in Civitavecchia Italy, from Alvarado Veracruz.
With the time the humble chapel grew. The church with the proportions that you can see today was finished around the XVII century.
Church Of San Francisco
The Church of San Francisco is located on the corner of Miguel Aleman Avenue and Mariano Escobedo street, in the neighborhood under the same name, known before as "Campechuelo". Franciscans missioners founded on the Indian ground of Kin Pech, one mile from the Villa of San Francisco of Campeche, the first Franciscan convent in 1546, at the place where the fist mass on Mexican territory took place in 1517.
In this convent many historical facts took place, like giving hospitality to Martin Cortes' wife - son of the conqueror of Mexico - who gave birth to Jeronimo on October 31, 1562, baptized by the Bishop Don Francisco de Toral, and having as Godfather Don Francisco de Montejo.
3. Cuisine
Once upon a time the Yucatecan peninsula was considered to be too far away and too difficult to reach from the rest of Mexico. Mountainous terrain and very poor roads kept the peninsula isolated. Having ports (Campeche was the principle port of Yucatan until well into the 19th century) with commercial and cultural contacts with Europe, (especially France), New Orleans, Cuba and Arab immigrants, the Campechanos were easily influenced by many aspects of these countries and cultures, such as dress, architecture and cooking, which explains why there is a lot of European flare in its cuisine. Therefore the culinary delights of a typical Campechean kitchen come from the same mouth watering mixture of European and Mexican flavors as the "Yucatecan Cuisine". Ingredients first used by the Maya include corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, chaya (a Spinach-like plant), avocado and achiote (annatto). The Spaniards introduced citrus fruit-limes and Seville oranges feature in many dishes, chicken, beef, dairy products, coriander, garlic, olives, oregano and rice. During your visit to Campeche, don't forget to try the tamales with chaya leaves and the pan de cazon (tortillas stuffed or layered with shark, beans and salsa), which among others, are part of the regional Mayan cuisine.
Source: Hacienda Puerta Campeche & Hacienda Uayamon
