Fortaleza de San Carlos

On the cold, high plain on the far side of the Cofre de Perote stands the Fortaleza de San Carlos, a massive stone fort from the last decades of Spanish rule. The Spanish crown built it between 1770 and 1776 on the royal road between the port of Veracruz and Mexico City, as a guard post and as a safe place to hold silver and other treasure before it was shipped to Spain.

After independence the fortress took on new lives. In 1823 Guadalupe Victoria founded Mexico's first military college here, and between 1841 and 1844 it held Texan prisoners captured during the Santa Fe and Mier expeditions, many of whom died or escaped. Victoria himself, Mexico's first president, died inside its walls in 1843.

Later it became a prison, and it stayed one until 2008, when work began to turn it into a museum. Today you can walk along the walls, look into the old arms rooms and barracks, and visit a hall dedicated to Guadalupe Victoria.