Puebla looks like an old Spanish painting that someone left in the sun. The colonial city, founded in 1531 on a plateau in central Mexico, has a historic centre of more than two thousand buildings covered in glazed tiles, baroque carving and bright paint, and UNESCO listed it in 1987. The street plan is a tidy grid around a large main square, the Zócalo, with a cathedral whose towers are among the tallest in the country. The ceramics called Talavera, white and blue earthenware painted with flowers, decorate churches, kitchens and fountains, and workshops in the city still make them by hand.
Two volcanoes tower over the town, and when the air is clear, you can see them from the streets. Popocatépetl, which is active and sometimes sends up a plume of ash, and Iztaccíhuatl, whose long ridge is said to resemble a sleeping woman, form the horizon to the west. The great pyramid at Cholula, a short drive away, is the largest in the world by volume, though from outside it looks like a grassy hill with a small church on top. The Spanish built the church deliberately over the sacred site.
Puebla has a distinct place in Mexican history and cuisine. On 5 May 1862, a smaller Mexican force defeated the French army outside the city, the battle celebrated as Cinco de Mayo. In the kitchen, the city claims mole poblano, a dark sauce of chilli, spices and chocolate, and chiles en nogada, stuffed green chillies in a walnut cream sauce topped with pomegranate seeds, the colours of the Mexican flag. The convent of Santa Mónica and its sweets, and the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, one of the oldest libraries in the Americas, are well worth the visit.
For riders, the roads leading out of Puebla include fast toll highways, called cuotas, and slower free roads, called libres, which wind through villages. Toll roads are quicker and better maintained, but they cost money, and the free roads have topes, speed bumps, that appear without warning. Fuel is easy to find in the city. The rainy season, from June to September, brings afternoon storms. Keep an eye out for ash, which can make the road slippery.