Salamanca

Salamanca has two sides. One is industrial: the Antonio M. Amor refinery, opened in 1950, a power plant and a Mazda car plant that opened in 2014 have made it a working city of 160,682 people, the fourth largest in Guanajuato. The other is a few steps from the Lerma River: the church of San Agustín, built between 1615 and 1706. It has eleven Churrigueresque altarpieces covered in gold leaf, the tallest dedicated to Saint Joseph and about 15 metres high, plus a pulpit inlaid with ivory and a huge pipe organ.

The Viceroy, the Count of Monterrey, granted the town's charter in 1602, and Spanish ranchers of the Bajío elected its first council on 1 January 1603. Otomí groups were already living here, and the chapel of San Juan de la Presa marks their first settlement, with a 16th-century stone cross in its atrium. Miguel Hidalgo stayed in town in September 1810 in a house at Juárez and Albino García streets. It is now the Galería Bicentenario, which tells local history with wax figures. The insurgent guerrilla leader Albino García came from Salamanca. In 1814 Iturbide had a local woman, Tomasa Esteves, executed for persuading his soldiers to desert. The town became a city in 1895. The refinery brought workers from Veracruz, Oaxaca and Mexico City, and the food reflects it. The local dish is green pozole made with sausage, ham and bacon, and fiambre is eaten for the Day of the Dead.

Salamanca's signature craft is wax: sculpted and flaked wax figures fill the monumental nativity scene at the house of culture each December. During the guilds' processions at Corpus Christi, wax decorations dress the Santuario del Señor del Hospital, home to a revered Black Christ. The Augustinian convent's main cloister houses the Centro de las Artes de Guanajuato, which is free to enter. On Holy Thursday and Good Friday thousands of pilgrims walk from Irapuato to the shrine, and the Feria de la Primavera fills Holy Week and the week after. North of town, the upper Temascatío river basin is a 17,432-hectare protected area.