Mexico City Travel Forum

Hi Travelers!
My friend and I will be in Mexico City the first week of August. We are trying to decide between doing a day trip to Puebla or Taxco. Any insights you can share with us? Which destination is easier to get to? Any tours reccomendations? Any help would be great! Thanks in advance.
Manuel

August is rain season, and I have not been in Mexico at this time of the year. So I do not know if you could really enjoy the proximity of the three big volcanoes (Popocatépetl, Ixtaccíhuatl, Pico de Orizaba) from Puebla. This would be the main reason for me to go to Puebla. There is ADO express bus service from Mexico City every 15 min, and the trip takes about 2 hours.

The main difference between Puebla itself and Taxco is the size of the places. Puebla a huge city of about 1.5 million people, Taxco rather a small place on a hill and soooooo romantic. The location is just beautiful, the narrow cobblestone streets very appealing, wonderful churches, arts and crafts shops and streets vendors. I think it is my favourite city all over Mexico, so picture-perfect it looks, and I bought most of my souvenirs and jewellery there. (Taxco is the silver capital of the world.)

You get everywhere on foot, and it would be a haven of peace after coming from Mexico City. The distance is about 200 km. They offer day trips from Mexico City to Taxco, some combined with Cuernavaca, the city of eternal spring, as they call it. As nice as Cuernavaca is, I would clearly opt for spectacular Taxco alone. I went there by car from Mexico City but there is also a public bus service from Taxqueña Bus Station (Mon - Sat, about 7 buses daily). The trip takes 2.5 hours.

More Taxco info here:

http://www.taxco-today.com/T.html

About Puebla (including transportation info):

http://www.ixeh.net/travel/puebla/puebla.html#getpue

I've been to both - for only a day, my vote would be Puebla too. They both are easy enough from DF. I personally don't think you need a tour for either.

But my vote went to Taxco ;-)))

Kaka is right and I support her........ count 2 votes for Taxco. Puebla isn't really that "huge" but yes, it's more populated and being the capital of the state is more "active/busy" than Taxco. Esthetically I also think that Taxco is nicer, although Puebla has lots of history and you can see several museums and the 2 Fortresses located there, as well as LOADS of churches (it's traditionally a very catholic city). You can find GREAT food in both places, as well as beautiful local handcrafts (different from each other). But yes, Taxco is more walkable and has this "small village" feeling, a great cathedral and the weather might be a bit nicer (it's closer to the west coast and farther south, and rainfalls are a bit more common in Puebla). The distance is virtually the same to either of these 2 places from Mex City; maybe there are more buses going to Puebla and they depart from different spots around the city, while you have to catch the (fewer) buses to Taxco from the southern bus terminal close to Metro Taxqueña necessarily. But I would still choose Taxco above Puebla.... good luck.

Thank you for the wonderful information. The link you sent is great! I will share this information with my friends.
M

Gracias Laura! Great description of both places. Thank you so much!