Museo de Arte Contemporaneo

Continuing north along the Alcalá pedestrian mall [1] from the Teatro Acalá [2], you soon pass the so-called Casa de Cortés, now the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (Macedonio Alcalá 202, tel. 951/514-1055, 10:30 a.m.–8 p.m. daily except Tues). Past the bookstore, exhibitions feature works of local and nationally known modern artists.

Although named popularly for Hernán Cortés, the building is at least a hundred years too new for Cortés to have lived there. The coat of arms on the facade above the door reveals it to have been the 17th-century home of a different Oaxaca family.

(For a change of pace, enjoy an airy 45- minute ride around town on the motorized trolley Tranvia Turístico, which takes off hourly, half a block downhill from the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, at the corner of Alcalá and Morelos, $3 per person.)