Cuernavaca Attractions

How to get there

From Mexico City: by bus (about 1.5 hours) or car via the MEX 95

Cuernavaca, state capital of Morelos, lies barely an hour's drive south of Mexico City. Its mild subtropical climate, myriads of brightly- coloured flowers and city centre full of old colonial charm make it a popular place of escape for people from the capital, adding to the large proportion of its residents who are retired. Recently however, creeping industrialisation and ever greater numbers of visitors have tended to mar the city's once rather intimate atmosphere.

History Cuernavaca (Náhuatl: Cuauhnáhuac = "near the trees") has a long Old Indian history, believed to date back to the Olmecs. From about ad 1200 it was the capital of the Tlahuica (Náhuatl: "people of the earth") who were subjugated by the Aztecs under Itzcóatl early in the 15th c. Even before that there is some suggestion of an association - most likely simply mythical - between the Aztec chief Huitzilíhuitl and Miahuaxihuitl, daughter of the ruler of Cuernavaca, a man famous for his supernatural powers. The future mighty Aztec ruler Moctezuma I was allegedly born out of this relationship. Right up until the Spanish Conquest the Aztecs maintained magnificent summer residences in Cuernavaca.

The Spaniards under Hernán Cortés seized and sacked Cuauhnáhuac in 1521. After the Emperor Charles V deprived him of his political power, Cortés stayed on in the city for a long while as Count of Cuerna-vaca, before finally returning to Spain in 1540. In the colonial period the Spanish upper class greatly enjoyed visiting Cuernavaca, and the Emperor Maximilian and his wife Charlotte took up residence there on several occasions during their short reign (1864-67). In the course of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), the rebellious peasantry led by Emiliano Zapata - who, with his cry of "Tierra y Libertad" (Land and Liberty), demanded redistribution of the huge landed estates - razed many haciendas in the surrounding area.

From 1936 to 1938 the English author Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) lived in Cuernavaca at Calle Humboldt 15. Using its old name he made the city the setting of his novel "Under the Volcano", published in 1947.