Zacualpan

Real de Minas Zacualpan sits high in the mountains southwest of Ixtapan de la Sal, an old silver town that is still a working mining community. Spanish prospectors were here within a few years of the Conquest, and by the mid-16th century Zacualpan was among the earliest mining centers in New Spain; local tradition proudly calls it the oldest on the continent. German mining specialists sent by the Fugger banking house are recorded here in the 1530s, and by the end of that century the district had more than twenty smelting haciendas.

Before the Spanish, the area was home to the Cohuixca, who were conquered by the Aztec Triple Alliance in the 15th century. The mines boomed and faded over the centuries, with a last big surge in the early 20th century, and that history is written into the town's steep streets, stone buildings and churches.

The State of Mexico named Zacualpan a Pueblo con Encanto for its mining roots, colonial buildings and landscape. It is quiet and off the usual tourist routes, which is part of the appeal: a day here is about wandering the center, visiting the parish church of the Immaculate Conception and the neighborhood chapels, and taking in the views over the folded hills toward Guerrero.