Barrio de La Ermita

La Ermita is the name Mérida gives to the streets around the Ermita de Santa Isabel, the small 18th-century chapel on Calle 66 in the south-west of the historic centre, about 1.3 km from the Plaza Grande. Historically it belongs to the old barrio of San Sebastián, one of the parishes into which colonial Mérida was divided, but the chapel and its park have given the area its own identity. It is a residential neighbourhood of colonial houses painted in strong colours, and its buildings are part of Mérida's protected zone of historic monuments.

The chapel stood at the start of the camino real, the royal road to San Francisco de Campeche, which is why it was first known as the chapel of Nuestra Señora del Buen Viaje, Our Lady of the Good Journey. An inscription over its door carries the year 1748. In 2023 La Ermita became the first part of Mérida included in the federal tourism ministry's Barrio Mágico programme, which can bring federal money for keeping up the façades and promoting the area; Santa Ana, Santa Lucía, La Mejorada, San Juan, San Sebastián, Santiago and San Cristóbal applied too.

The streets around the chapel are among the few in the centre that keep their old cobblestones. Between July and October 2025 the city's public works department, with permits and help from INAH, lifted 164,935 stones over about 2,865 m², levelled the base and laid each one back in its place, the first of four planned stages for the historic centre's cobbled streets. The park in front of the chapel, remodelled some years ago, has shade trees, palms, benches and a kiosk; students rest there at midday, and in the evening stalls sell panuchos and salbutes. Next to the chapel is a small botanical garden, and sunset over the park and the stepped façade is one of the neighbourhood's classic views.