Huejotzingo

Fourteen kilometers northwest of Cholula, on the free highway back to Mexico City (about half an hour’s drive) is the dusty town of Huejotzingo, site of a 16th-century monastery dedicated to the Archangel Michael, one of the first built in Mexico and one of the best preserved as well. The mix of indigenous and Christian motifs in the carvings on the church and adjacent cloister are fascinating. Note the ominous carved skulls on the courtyard towers, known as capillas posas. Inside, the superb late-16th-century retablo (altarpiece) is considered one of the greatest of its kind in the New World. The monastery is open until 5 p.m. daily.

The best times to visit Huejotzingo, if you want a spectacle, are the week around its saint’s day—San Miguel, on September 29, which conveniently doubles up with a national cider festival—and carnival, in the early spring, which here culminates on Shrove Tuesday, featuring enactments of battles that combine indigenous history, colonial legend, and sheer fantasy.