Zacatecas, Mexico

ZACATECAS, almost 2500m up and crammed into a narrow gully between two hills, packs more of interest into a small space than almost anywhere in Mexico and ranks, alongside Guanajuato, as one of the Bajío's finest colonial cities. Its beauty enhanced by the harshness of the semi-desert landscape all around, it remains much as the British Admiralty's Handbook of Mexico described it in 1905: "irregular", its streets "very narrow, steep, and frequently interrupted by stone steps" and "much exposed to winds blowing through the gorge". Those same winds still gust bitterly cold in winter, and even though many of the once cobbled streets are now paved and choked with traffic, the town is otherwise little changed.