2 Best Sights in Campeche City, Yucatán and Campeche States

One of the city's earliest colonial homes now serves as a cultural center. Its fully restored rooms are furnished with period antiques and a few well-chosen reproductions; original frescoes at the tops of the walls remain, and you can see patches of the painted "wallpaper" that once covered the walls, serving to simulate European trends in an environment where real wallpaper wouldn't adhere due to the humidity. There is a small coffee shop on-site, plus a gift shop selling products from Campeche. The Moorish courtyard is occasionally used as a space for exhibits and lectures. Activities occur here several evenings a week. Vivo Recuerdo, a musical/theater interpretation of Campeche's history, is presented Thursday through Sunday; Con Sabor a Chocolate, a chocolate-making demonstration, takes place on Friday and Saturday.

Built in the early 20th century by one of the Yucatán's wealthiest plantation owners, Fernando Carvajal Estrada, this eclectic mansion is a reminder of the city's heyday, when Campeche was the peninsula's only port. Local legend insists that the art nouveau staircase with Carrara marble steps and iron balustrade, built and delivered in one piece from Italy, was too big and had to be shipped back and redone. These days the mansion is filled with government offices—you'll have to stretch your imagination a bit to picture how it once was.