Santuario de Guadalupe (San Diego)

The Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, also called the Templo de San Diego, stands at the eastern end of the Calzada Fray Antonio de San Miguel, about 1.5 km east of the cathedral. It was built over eight years, from 1708 to 1716, when this spot lay outside the city, then still called Valladolid. In its last stage of construction it was handed to the Dieguinos, a branch of the Franciscan order named after San Diego, which is where its second name comes from. Because the church was out of town, a pedestrian causeway was laid in 1732 to reach it; that walkway is today's Calzada, and next to the church the former San Diego convent now houses the Universidad Michoacana's faculty of law and social sciences.

From outside the sanctuary looks restrained: a sober baroque stone façade and a single tower. The surprise is inside. In 1915 the local craftsman Joaquín Orta covered the walls, vaults, columns and domes with relief decoration made of clay and plaster, joining the Indigenous tradition of modelled clay with European plasterwork. Thousands of leaves, flowers and garlands, painted mostly in pink, red and gold, climb every surface, which is why many visitors call it one of the most beautiful churches in Mexico. The main altar is neoclassical, with Corinthian columns framing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and in 1975 earlier murals of her apparitions were replaced with murals about the arrival and work of the Franciscans.

The sanctuary is still a working church and a major pilgrimage site. In the two weeks from the end of November to 12 December, the date of her feast, it fills with pilgrims, and 12 December is the biggest day of the year here. The gardens of the Jardín de San Diego in front of the church and the shaded Calzada make it easy to combine a visit with a walk along the aqueduct and the Bosque Cuauhtémoc, which lie just to the south and west.