Gringo Gulch

Gringo Gulch is the small hillside neighbourhood just behind the Guadalupe church in downtown Puerto Vallarta, on the north bank of the Cuale River. Its steep cobbled lanes, whitewashed houses, red tile roofs and bougainvillea climb the slope of El Cerro, and it takes its name from the Americans who began building holiday homes here in the 1950s, after the town's centenary in 1951 started to draw outsiders.

Much of what you see was shaped by two builders. Fernando "Freddy" Romero wanted houses in the style of a traditional Mexican pueblo rather than modern villas, and his whitewashed adobe walls, pitched clay-tile roofs, stone and wrought iron became known as the Vallarta style; the engineer Guillermo Wulff added the brick cupolas seen all over town. Casa Tabachín, one of the first houses, from 1957, was rented by John Huston while he filmed The Night of the Iguana at Mismaloya in 1963.

That film is why the gulch is famous. Huston put Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor up in Casa Kimberley, on Calle Zaragoza; Burton bought it and gave it to Taylor for her 32nd birthday in 1964, and later they bought the house across the street and joined the two with a pink bridge over the lane, the puente del amor. The paparazzi coverage of their affair helped put Puerto Vallarta on the map. Taylor sold the property in the 1990s, and today the two houses are Casa Kimberly, an adults-only boutique hotel with nine suites and the Iguana restaurant. The rest of the gulch is still a quiet residential area to wander, with views over the rooftops to the bay.