Puebla, Mexico

The city of Puebla is the capital of the state of Puebla, and one of the five most important Spanish colonial cities in Mexico. Being a colonial era planned city, it is located to the east of Mexico City and west of Mexico's main Atlantic port, Veracruz, on the main route between the two in Central Mexico.

The city was founded in 1531 in an area called Cuetlaxcoapan, which means "where serpents change their skin", in between two of the main indigenous settlements at the time, Tlaxcala and Cholula.  Due to its history and architectural styles ranging from Renaissance to Mexican Baroque, the city as named a World Heritage Site in 1987. The city is also famous for food: mole poblano, chiles en nogada and Talavera pottery (which we bought some pieces).

The city is also important because of its industry, with one of the world's largest Volkswagen factories outside of Germany located in the Municipality of Cuautlancingo. They employ over 60,000 workers. That is the size of Avondale, AZ! As a result, many supplier factories have opened in the city of Puebla.

 

So this is what we saw and experienced while in Puebla.

 

 

Street in Puebla all decorated for the Independence Day for Mexico.

We ate a restaurant called Villa Rosa that had a buffet. We found out it was the fastest place to eat when you only have 2 hours to spend there - less time eating and more time sightseeing on your own! This is what our food looked like. All the veggies were cold (I miss hot veggies!). Buffet was good - I could pick what I thought was SAFE.

 The streets were cobblestone, but they had the gutters built right next to the street and then the sidewalk on the other side. The gutters were like a trough. Curtis thought it was very clever!

Church of Santo Domingo in Puebla

Inside the church

 Open air markets of all kinds! We saw junk for sale,

artistry of all kinds, clothing, furniture, you name it!

This is Talavera Pottery (we went to actual factory).

Reminded me of going to the Blue Delft in Holland.

We drove down one street, it was all a fish market.

We saw signs for Shark, Shrimp, you name it. They are

really close to the Gulf of Mexico - so all of it was fresh.

While visiting another church we saw a limo drive up with a wedding party. These are people lined up with their noses against the fense waiting for the bride to get out of the limo!

 So I learned something interesting - read to the last line!

The 1857–62 Mexican civil war known as The Reform War had disorganized the country's finances and the new President, Benito Juárez, was forced to suspend payments of foreign debts in 1861. In late 1861 Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, under the Treaty of London (1861) sent a joint expeditionary force to Mexico, alongside Spanish and British forces, to protect their interests and collect the debts owed by the previous Mexican government. The allied troops occupied the port city of Veracruz on 8 December 1861 and advanced to Orizaba. Napoleon III wanted to seize the opportunity presented by the U.S. involvement in the American Civil War to set up a puppet Mexican regime. Napoleon's intrigues led to the withdrawal of the Spanish and British troops in April 1862 at the same time that French reinforcements arrived.

The Battle of Puebla took place on 5 May 1862 near the city of Puebla during the French invasion of Mexico. The battle ended in a victory for the Mexican Army over the occupying French forces. The Mexican victory is celebrated yearly on the fifth of May.

This holiday remains very popular in the United States where it is celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo.  I didn't know why, now I do!