Querétaro is small, prosperous and historically decisive: the conspiracy that became the war of independence was hatched in the capital's drawing rooms in 1810, Maximilian was executed on a hill outside the city in 1867, and the constitution still in force was written here in 1917.
Santiago de Querétaro has a UNESCO centre of shaded plazas and a 1,280-metre aqueduct on 74 arches, built because a Capuchin nun asked for water.
North, the land breaks up into the Sierra Gorda, a biosphere reserve of canyons and cloud forest holding five Franciscan missions built in the 1750s by Junípero Serra — their façades carved by local craftsmen into something no Spanish church ever looked like. Jalpan is the base; Pinal de Amoles and San Joaquín sit higher.
Bernal is dominated by a 350-metre monolith, one of the largest in the world, and is a weekend town for the capital. Tequisquiapan, half an hour south, is the base for the cheese-and-wine route and for balloon flights at dawn. Amealco is Otomí country and the origin of the muñecas Lele, the rag dolls sold across Mexico.
