5 Best Sights in Campeche City, Yucatán and Campeche States

It took two centuries (from 1650 to 1850) to finish this cathedral, and, as a result, it incorporates both neoclassical and Renaissance elements. On the simple limestone exterior, sculptures of saints in niches are covered in black netting to discourage pigeons from unintentional desecration. The church's neoclassical interior is also somewhat plain and sparse. The high point of its collection, now housed in the side chapel museum, is a magnificent Holy Sepulchre carved from ebony and decorated with stamped silver angels, flowers, and decorative curlicues. Each angel holds a symbol of the Stations of the Cross.

The Jesuits built this fine baroque church in honor of St. Joseph just before they were booted out of the New World in 1767. Its block-long facade and portal are covered with blue-and-yellow Talavera tiles and crowned with seven narrow stone finials—resembling both the roof combs on many Mayan temples and the combs Spanish women once wore in their elaborate hairdos. You can ask the guard (who should be somewhere on the grounds) to let you in. From the outside you can admire Campeche's first lighthouse, built in 1864 and perched atop the right-hand tower.

With its flat, boldly painted facade and bells ensconced under small arches instead of in bell towers, the Church of St. Francis looks more like a Mexican city hall than a Catholic church. Outside the city center in a residential neighborhood, the beautifully restored temple is Campeche's oldest. It marks the spot where some say the first Mass on the North American continent was held in 1517—though the same claim has been made for Veracruz and Cozumel. One of conquistador Hernán Cortés's grandsons was baptized here, and the baptismal font still stands.

Like most Franciscan churches, this one is sober and plain, and its single bell tower is the only ornamentation. The equally sparse interior is brightened a bit by some colorful stained-glass windows, and the carved and inlaid altarpiece serves as a beautiful backdrop for an ebony image of Jesus, the "Black Christ," brought from Italy in about 1575. Although understandably skeptical of Christianity, the indigenous people, who the Spaniards forced into perpetual servitude, eventually came to associate this Black Christ figure with miracles. As legend has it, a ship that refused to carry the holy statue was lost at sea, while the ship that accepted it reached Campeche in record time. To this day, the Feast of San Román—when worshippers carry a black-wood Christ and silver filigree cross through the streets—remains a solemn but colorful affair.

The elaborately carved main altarpiece and matching side altars here were restored inch by inch, and this long, narrow house of worship now adds more than ever to historic Calle 59's old-fashioned beauty. Built in 1565, it was originally called Iglesia de San Francisco for St. Francis. In addition to a statue of Francis, humbler-looking saints peer out from smaller niches.