Parque Juárez

Parque Juárez is the central park of Xalapa, laid out on a terrace at about 1,380 metres on the west side of the Palacio de Gobierno, a few steps from the Palacio Municipal and the cathedral. It is the city's main meeting point and its best-known lookout: from the south side the view takes in the hills of Coatepec and Xico, the Cofre de Perote to the west, the snows of the Pico de Orizaba to the south and, very faintly on clear days, the San Martín Tuxtla volcano more than 200 km away.

The site was once occupied by the Franciscan convent founded in the 1530s, one of the earliest in New Spain; its ruins were demolished in 1889 to make room for the park, which interim governor Leandro Alcolea opened on 16 September 1892 and named after Benito Juárez. It was enlarged under governor Teodoro Dehesa, neighbouring houses were bought up, and the old Teatro Victoria was pulled down to make way for the terrace. In 1921 the chamber of commerce, led by William K. Boone, built the ramp that brought cars up from the railway station. The tall araucaria trees are said to have been a gift from the Chilean ambassador in the Porfirio Díaz years. From the 1920s to the 1940s a band played at weekends while young people circled the park in opposite directions, a courting custom long gone.

The centrepiece is the monument to the four cardinal virtues by Xalapa-born sculptor Gabriel Guerra: Fortitude, Justice and Prudence in Carrara marble were placed in 1931, and a new Temperance in Tatatila marble by Armando Zavaleta León joined them in 1979. There are also monuments to Juárez, Francisco I. Madero and Juan de la Luz Enríquez. Beneath the terrace is the Ágora de la Ciudad, a cultural centre with galleries, an art-house cinema, a bookshop and a café, and the Pinacoteca Diego Rivera is at the edge of the park, along with an open-air forum and a large feathered-serpent play structure.