Where to Stay in Saltillo, Estado de Coahuila de Zaragoza

What is Saltillo known for?

Its baroque cathedral, carved in pale stone, rises over the main square, the town is famous for the bright woven blankets called sarapes, and a great desert museum guards the dinosaurs of Coahuila. Poets and scholars gave it a name for learning. Craft and stone mark the town.

What are the main landmarks in Saltillo?

The Cathedral of Santiago crowns the heart of Saltillo. Its finely carved baroque front, among the best in the north, rises over the main plaza, the emblem of the city, in the old centre. Museums fill the town.

The Museo del Sarape shows the bright woven blankets, while the Desert Museum guards the dinosaurs and cactus of Coahuila and the colonial streets frame the square.

What is the history of Saltillo?

Saltillo was founded as a Spanish town on the northern frontier. The Spanish laid it out in 1577 as one of the first towns of the far north, a base on the road to the silver mines and the wild lands beyond, and it became the chief town of a vast desert province. Tlaxcalan settlers came to farm.

The crown brought loyal native families from the south to settle beside the town and hold the frontier, and their weavers helped make the famous Saltillo sarape. The town grew into a city of learning. In time Saltillo became known as a centre of schools and letters, an Athens of the north, and grand churches and colleges rose around its square.

History passed through its streets. It was briefly the capital of a great border state and saw the armies of more than one war, but its old cathedral and colonial centre survived. The sarape is still woven here.

Saltillo guards its cathedral and its craft in the desert.

Where is Saltillo?

Saltillo lies in a high desert valley of northern Mexico. The city sits over fifteen hundred metres up where the dry Coahuila plateau meets the ranges of the Sierra Madre, in a land of scrub, cactus, and bare brown hills. Dry mountains rise around the town.

The desert plateau stretches away to the north.

What is the climate of Saltillo?

Saltillo has a dry highland desert climate. Warm days and cool nights mark the long summer on the plateau, and the winters turn cold with frost and the odd snow, with little rain in any season. Dust blows across the dry valley.

The desert air stays clear and cool.

How do you get to Saltillo?

Saltillo lies in the highlands just south of Monterrey. Highways and rail run to it across the desert from Monterrey and toward the centre of Mexico, and the city has its own airport. Buses reach the desert towns around.

Most arrive by road from Monterrey.