Day 5      1/15/2024

Campeche, MX

Frank's Trip

CLICK on any image to enlarge - use mouse cursor to move enlargement it if doesn't fit area

Campeche is a World Heritage City...

In my own viewpoint when I visited, this designation comes not so much from any specific sites, but from the whole. In the historic section, one can picture themselves taking a step through a time portal to days of long ago and the ways the buildings and city were then.

Ex-Templo de San Jose

Before the arrival of the Jesuit Company, there was a chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph, patron saint of carpenters and caulkers. The Jesuit residence grew and the construction of a larger temple became necessary. The works undertaken in 1735 ceased upon the expulsion of the order, by Royal Decree, and restarted in 1799 when the Franciscans took charge of the institution. Around 1809, immediately after the dome was completed, it was put into full service until 1914, when it was used to contain the library of the Campechano Institute. Later, from 1924 to 1934, it functioned as a place of public worship and later transformed into a winery and again into a library.

Today the old temple building is used as a gallery for cultural events and exhibitions, while the adjacent building, where the school was, is today El Benemérito Instituto Campechano.

From the outside one can see Campeche's first lighthouse, built in 1864, and perched atop the right-hand tower.

Mansión Carvajal

Mansion Carvajal is a beautiful house probably built in the 18th-century home of the landowner Fernando Carvajal Estrada and his wife María Lavalle de Carvajal.

Campeche Historic City Wall

For the first 160 years of Campeche, the city was the target of near constant attacks by the British of Dutch pirates, looting the gold and treasures that had been looted by the Spanish. The entire city was surrounded with a massive wall, over 2.5km in length with 8 equally massive bastions incorporated in it and four separate gates. Two additional forts protected the city from the north and south. Most of the forts survived but only 500 meters (1,600 ft) of the original wall remains.

Behind the walls...

inside the wall are buildings following the contour of the wall and streets behind them with more buildings and dwellings.

Bastion of Santa Rosa

The Bastion of Santa Rosa dates back to 1688. It owes its name to the devotion to Santa Rosa de Lima, the first American (as in American continent not nation) saint and much revered among the Creoles of that time. It as the first artillery fortress and the first of 8 bastions built to protect the city.

LEFT: One of a couple museum rooms