We’ve got a full day to ourselves in Mérida today with nothing planned other than a gentle stroll in the hot sun along the elegant Pasejo de Montejo which we drove down yesterday. But before we start that walk there’s a few places closer to our hotel still to see. 

Both the Rectoria El Jesus, the Jesuit church on Plaza Hidalgo and the huge Cathedral on Plaza Grande were built using stones from the Mayan temples that the Catholic invaders tore down. The Cathedral is one of the very oldest churches in the whole of the Americas still on its original site, being first constructed in 1549. When we enter Mass is taking place, under the looming sight of Christ crucified on an enormous twelve metre high cross. 

Next door to the Cathedral is the glass atrium-ed Pasaje de Revolución which houses the rather splendid Museum of Contemporary Art of Yucatán, or MACAY as it bills itself for short. The upper floor is devoted to artworks by some of the state’s greatest modern artists, with exhibits by Gabriel Ramirez, who was obviously heavily inspired by Joán Míro, Vincente Rojo, Fernando Castro Pacheco, whose murals we saw in the Governor’s Palace yesterday, Gabriel Ramírez Aznar and our favourite Fernando García Ponce, who creates extraordinary and huge collages. 

The ground floor is dedicated to an amazing collection of sculptures, which are whimsical, funny, challenging and thought provoking in equal measure. But what impresses us most is the fact that there’s a class of local primary school children having a class about modern art and the different artistic styles, in English! The teacher tells us it’s important for them to be both bilingual and educated about art. Very inspiring!

From there we walk past the beautifully designed Museo del Músico, and down through Parque Santa Lucía, where we check out the statues that line the stage where the Serenata concert took place last night. And after a few more blocks we come to the grand Pasejo de Montejo, with some of the most ostentatiously wealthy mansions in the whole of southern Mexico, built on the back of the “green gold” boom of the henequen plant, which as we discovered in Campeche was the source of rope for 90% of the global maritime industry for well over a century. 

A few of these mansions have now become museums and the first we visit is Montejo 495, which was built between 1906 and 1912, along with its next door neighbour. Both were designed by a French architect who never set foot in Mexico. He just sent over the design for one house and the Cámara Zavala family, who were hugely rich plantation owners built two for the price of one.

In 1964 the family sold the properties and Montejo 495 was bought by Fernando Barbachano Herrero, one of the first and most important tourist property developers of Cancun, Cozumel, Tulum and more. He also privately owned both the sites of Chichen Itzá and Uxmal before selling them back to the Mexican government. 

Fernando came from the prestigious Mexican elite, and studied at Harvard where he was roommates with John F Kennedy. Both JFK and Jackie visited the house, with Jackie returning many times in the years after his death. Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco also used to come and stay and the house was a bustling family home until well after Fernando and his wife died. Their children inherited it but in 2021 decided to open it as a museum restoring it to its original Edwardian grandeur. 

We’re shown around by a guide called Gustavo who describes in enormous detail every last crystal chandelier, stained glass window, item of furniture, marble column, portrait, photo and personal belonging, all the while closely followed by a second guide at a discreet distance watching our every move to ensure we don’t touch a thing. We’re not allowed to go upstairs to the bedrooms or to see the private theatre and cinema in the attic, but are taken into the basement to see the enormous kitchen and staff quarters. 

As we’re leaving a lady in her late sixties comes to say hello and asks us if we’ve enjoyed seeing the house. There’s a sophisticated air about her and taking an educated guess I ask her if she enjoyed growing up here. She smiles and says very much, it’s a house full of happy memories. “I live in a shoebox on the other side of the city now, but I get to come here every day and enjoy it!”

She’s Maruja, the eldest of the Barbachano Herrero children, and when Coman tells her we love the portrait of her as a young girl in the drawing room she positively beams with joy. She tells us they’re in the process of restoring the bedrooms, which include individual living rooms with separate maid and butler antechambers, to how they used to be when the plantation owners had them, using photos from when Fernando first moved their family in, but the hardest thing is working out what to do with her and all her siblings’ possessions and furniture which are still up there.

And it’s expensive too; a storm damaged the wallpaper that had been in her bedroom ever since she had been a girl. When she contacted the design house in Paris that originally made it she was told it’s well over €1000 a square foot to replace it. “I’m not paying that!” she laughs, and off she wanders to the kitchen. 

Just a few houses down from Montejo 495 is the very grand Palacio Canton, home to the well-regarded Museum of Anthropology, which is sadly closed temporarily, and just a little further along El Minaret, which has a tower like a lighthouse for evening views of the city. Many of the mansions over time became abandoned and either bought up and restored by banks and businesses or are crumbling into disarray a little like the Garden District of New Orleans. 

However the exquisite Casa Quinta Montes Molina is another house still owned by a grand family and now used as a museum, although members of the family occasionally stay overnight when they visit Mérida, and host extravagant parties in the gardens, where a high end restaurant is currently under construction. According to the information we are given, the house was originally called Villa Beatriz and represents the styles prevalent during the period of Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, who served seven terms, lasting over 30 years between 1876 to 1911. He was obsessed with France, and constructed many of the grand neoclassical buildings in Mexico City. 

Built by the prosperous Cuban businessman Don Aurelio Portuondo y Barcelóna at the end of the 19th Century, he fell on hard times and was forced to sell the house in 1915. Looking for a family that would appreciate all of its beauty, he found the Montes Molina. Don Avelino Montes Linaje was a dynamic Spanish banker and entrepreneur, married to Doña María Molina Fiqueroa, the daughter of former Yucatan State governor Don Olegario Molina Solis. The house remains owned by the Montes Molinas and another branch of the Molina family still own and live in the second French-style mansion next to 495 Montejo. 

The house is jam-packed with treasures of both grand furniture and elegant design, but also include fabulous touches like the extravagant collection of hats the ladies collected and stored in Art Deco cabinets as well as antique home movie cameras from the earliest days of the cinema age. 

The Paseo de Montejo is also punctuated by a number of monuments as we walk along it, commemorating important figures such as father and son Francisco de Montejo, and later statesmen including Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Doctor Justo Sierra O 'Reilly. The most impressive of them all is also the biggest, the quite incredible El Monumento de La Patria, which is a circular monument to native Mexicans, and the history of the nation through invasion, independence, reform and revolution. Designed by the Yucatecan architects Manuel and Max Amabilis it was expanded and elaborated by the Colombian sculptor Romulo Rozo Pena, and finished concluded in 1956.

All the monuments have been spray-painted with feminist graffiti, which we have seen throughout Mexico on buildings and statues, especially in San Cristóbal where the women’s hospital was covered in it, accusing the authorities of “feminicide” because despite abortion being passed as legal in Mexico City by the federal government, none of the other Mexican states have yet passed it into law, meaning thousands of women a year are still having to turn to backstreet abortionists to terminate unwanted pregnancies, often as a result of rape.  It’s a major social issue in Mexico right now and the feminist movement is becoming hugely radicalised at the inequality of the law.  

El Monumento de la Patria represents the end of Paseo de Montejo so we stop for a late lunch at a little Italian restaurant for a bite to eat before pottering back up the other side of the avenue. 

As we approach our starting point once more we stop to look at Piensarosa, which is another old mansion, and now an art gallery, restaurant and bar. Its owner Mar, a woman with both fabulous sunglasses and décolletage, swoops us up immediately to show us around and before we know it we are drinking margaritas and posing for her Instagram feed. Her husband bought her the house as a project and she loves to host parties there and display her favourite artists and there are some great works on display. 

Our favourites turn out to be hers too; one is a painting of her mother in a hat with roses across her chest and the other is of two dancers in full flow, who again are her parents. We look at the price tags and and sadly conclude that they will need to remain as her family heirlooms even though they would look marvellous in our house.   

That evening, once we have packed for our long bus journey tomorrow, we head out for dinner at a vegan restaurant called Crush we spotted earlier in the day, close to Parque Santa Lucía. The meal is very nice and we get chatting to an Italian couple at the next table who recommend one of the cocktails to us. 

They tell us they have hired a car and are driving around the peninsula exploring under their own steam on a bit of a whirlwind two week itinerary. When we share tales of what we’ve been up to, they are very keen to know if the drive is safe from Palenque to San Cristóbal. It’s obviously a bone of contention between them as the woman confesses to being worried about the dangerous roads and the possibility of armed robbery, while he is far more blasé. We pass on what knowledge and advice we can, and wish them luck, but expect they are going to be arguing about it for a while yet. 

As we make our way back to the hotel, all the bars and restaurants are very lively, with music pouring out of everywhere. It’s Friday night and everyone is having fun, a city alive and vibrant with art, colour, passion and joy. We will be very sad to leave Merida in the morning. It’s a truly fabulous city.