Tula And The Atlantes

Tula flourished between about 900 and 1150 CE, in the gap between the fall of Teotihuacán and the rise of Tenochtitlan, and it collapsed violently — the ceremonial centre was burned and the Atlantes were buried, which is why they survive. Its influence reached as far as Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, where the architecture repeats Tula's forms closely enough to have caused a century of argument about who copied whom.

For the Mexica, three centuries later, Tollan was the golden age: they claimed descent from the Toltecs, borrowed their iconography and used tolteca as a word meaning artist or craftsman. Standing here, an hour and a half from the Templo Mayor, is standing in the place the Aztec empire told itself it came from.

Tula — Tollan to the Mexica — was the Toltec capital between roughly 900 and 1150 CE, the city the Aztecs later claimed as their civilised ancestor and whose name became a byword for artistry. What survives is a compact ceremonial centre: two pyramids, two ball courts, a colonnade and the coatepantli, a wall carved with snakes swallowing human figures.

The Atlantes stand on top of Pyramid B: four columns carved as warriors, four metres tall, in basalt, with butterfly breastplates and atlatls. They held up a roof that is long gone, and they are the single most reproduced pre-Hispanic sculptures after the Sun Stone. Standing under them takes ten minutes and is the reason for the journey.

The site museum, named for the archaeologist Jorge R. Acosta who excavated here, holds ceramics, reliefs and the explanatory material the open site lacks. It is included in the ticket and it is usually empty.

By road it is the Mexico–Querétaro motorway (57) with a turn for Tula de Allende, about 1 hour 30 without traffic. Coaches run from Terminal Central del Norte towards Tula through the day; local colectivos from the town centre pass the site entrance. Operators publish fares at the counter rather than in a form we could read.

Very few tours from Mexico City come here, which is both the drawback — you will probably be arranging it yourself — and the appeal: on a weekday the site can be nearly empty, which is never true at Teotihuacán.

Mornings are the answer: the site opens at 09:00, the light on the Atlantes is best early, and the plateau is hot and exposed by midday in the dry months. From June to September the afternoon storms arrive as they do in the city, so an early start is a weather decision as much as a crowd one.

Bring water, a hat and sunscreen — at 2,000 metres on open ground the sun is stronger than it feels — and shoes that handle uneven stone. There is a small café at the entrance and the town of Tula de Allende, five minutes away, has restaurants around its own sixteenth-century monastery, which is worth twenty minutes if you have a car.

Teotihuacán is bigger by an order of magnitude, closer to the city, open every day and served by coaches every fifteen minutes. It is the one to take if you are choosing one. Tula is smaller, quieter, later in date, and has the Atlantes — which Teotihuacán has nothing like.

So: first pyramid site, Teotihuacán. Second, Tula. If you have five days and have already done Teotihuacán, this is the more interesting second choice than repeating a bigger version of the same visit.

Tula belongs to a longer stay: with four days you take Teotihuacán, and with six or more this is the second pyramid day. It is also a Monday option, since it opens every day of the year. The day-trips page compares it with the alternatives, and the city itself is on the Mexico City city guide.