Tepotzotlán is a Pueblo Mágico just off the highway north of Mexico City, and its heart is a building that stops you in your tracks. The old Jesuit college of San Francisco Javier was a training centre for the order in New Spain, a place where novices learned theology and native languages before being sent out across the colony. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767 the college passed to others, and today it houses the National Museum of the Viceroyalty, one of the best collections of colonial art in the country. It also forms part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the silver road that ran north from the capital towards Santa Fe, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010.
The church facade is the showstopper: a tower of carved stone in full Churrigueresque style, a riot of saints, columns and foliage, golden in the late afternoon sun. Inside, the side chapels are dripping with gilded altarpieces, and the small domed chapel known as the camarín is so dense with ornament it almost hums. Allow at least an hour if you go in.
The town around it is lively and easy to enjoy, with a big plaza, market stalls and families out on weekends. Just outside, the Arcos del Sitio, a tall colonial aqueduct striding across a ravine, make a good short side trip on a twisting country road.
Getting there means dealing with the outskirts of the metropolis. The México-Querétaro highway is a toll road, fast and busy with trucks, and you leave it at the Tepotzotlán exit. Once off it, the local roads are narrower, with topes, the vicious speed bumps that appear without warning in every Mexican town, and plenty of minibuses stopping where they please. Altitude is over two thousand metres here, so expect cool mornings, hot middays and afternoon thunderstorms in the rainy season from about June to September.
With close to forty thousand people, Tepotzotlán has fuel, banks and food everywhere. Around the plaza you will find stalls selling tamales, quesadillas and pulque, and restaurants serving mole and barbacoa on weekends. Park somewhere you can keep an eye on the bike, grab an agua fresca and sit under the trees facing that facade; it is one of the great sights of colonial Mexico.