Tlayacapan - Pueblo Magico

About 50 miles east of Cuernavaca lies the town of Tlayacapan, one of the 41 Pueblos Magicos in Mexico.  One of Tlayacapan's main attractions is the former convent of San Juan Bautista  with fresco paintings on its walls dating back to the sixteenth century, showing the form of expression of the Augustinian fathers.  Associated with the San Juan Bautista monastery are a series of 26 chapels through out the area, some still in use and other in disrepair.

Tlayacapan is one of the 14 towns that make up ¨Monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl¨ which as a group is now a World Heritage Site. These monasteries were recognized by UNESCO in 1994, because they served as the model for the early monastery and church buildings as well as evangelization efforts in New Spain and some points beyond in Latin America.

Within the convent San Juan Bautista is also a cultural and historical museum and a small display of mummies that show something of the social class that dominated the area.

The massive convent of San Juan Bautista

Chapel Santa Maria

Tlayacapan municipal building on the plaza

Mummy museum 

Cathedral de Cuernavaca

Cathedral of Cuernavaca is located downtown about 5 blocks west of the plaza

This building served originally as the church for a Franciscan monastery founded in 1526; it became the cathedral for Cuernavaca in 1891. The fifth mission to begin construction on the continent, La Anunciación de Nuestra Señora employed pre-Conquest building techniques such thick rubble walls reinforced by cut stone at corners, windows, and doorways. The complex was largely complete by 1574. There is little documentation on the original construction, but scholars believe that the open chapel preceded the building of the church.

An amazing architectural complex formed by an atrium surrounded by tall 'battlemented' walls. The Cathedral has been remodeled in the last 20 years and murals depicting the martyrdom of St. Felipe de Jesus were found all along both sides of the walls. In the same complex are found the Chapel of San Jose, the Chapel of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, the Chapel of Carmen as well as the Temple of Terce Orden. It is also famous for its Sunday "Mariachi Mass".