Taxco

Santa Prisca, finished in 1758, was built in eight years by José de la Borda, a miner who struck one of the richest silver veins in New Spain and spent it here. The facade is pink stone carved to within an inch of collapse, the interior is gilded from floor to vault, and it is free to enter. It is the single best Churrigueresque building in Mexico and the reason Taxco is not just a shopping town.

The lanes: white walls, red-tiled roofs, doors opening straight onto cobbles at angles that make the whole place look stacked. The Plaza Borda in front of the church is the only flat ground. Museo Guillermo Spratling, behind the church, covers the American silversmith who revived the craft here in the 1930s and turned Taxco into a silver town rather than a mining one.

The cable car to Monte Taxco, above the town, gives the view that explains the geography, and the Cristo Monumental on the ridge is the other viewpoint. Neither price is published in a form we could read, so we do not print one.

Look for the .925 stamp, which marks sterling silver — 92.5% pure. Reputable shops stamp their work and will show you the mark; a piece with no stamp is not necessarily fake, but it is not sterling either. Alpaca — nickel silver — is sold openly here and is not silver at all, and honest sellers say so.

Prices are per gram plus workmanship, so weight matters and the same design costs different money in different shops. Haggling is normal in the markets and less so in the established shops. The Saturday market at the Plaza is where the wholesale trade shows, and the National Silver Fair each November is when the town is fullest.

Coaches run from Terminal Central del Sur (Taxqueña) to Taxco in about 2 hours 45, on the motorway through Cuernavaca. By car the same road, and the last stretch climbs. Operators publish fares at the counter rather than in a form we could read.

In the town itself, forget the car: the lanes are too narrow and too steep, which is why the white VW Beetle taxis and the combis exist. They are cheap, constant and the normal way to get from one end of Taxco to the other.

A day trip gives you about five hours in Taxco, which covers Santa Prisca, a walk and lunch, and not much else. An overnight gives you the town after the coaches leave: the lanes lit, the plaza in use, and the morning light on the church, which is when the pink stone is worth the journey.

If a single long day is what you have, Puebla is the better use of it — closer, flatter and with more inside it. Taxco is the trip to make when you have five days or more, or when silver is the specific reason you are going.

On four days, Teotihuacán is the day out and Taxco does not fit. On five or more, it is a choice between this and Puebla — and if you can, make Taxco the overnight and Puebla the day. The day-trips page compares them, and the city is on the Mexico City city guide.