Where to Stay in Colima, Estado de Colima

What is Colima known for?

Colima keeps the Museo Regional de Historia de Colima, the Alfonso Michel University Art Gallery, and the Museo Universitario de Artes Populares María Teresa Pomar within a state capital that draws fewer visitors than the coast. The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe carries the colonial centre. A university with international exchange programmes sits alongside all of it, and the Colima volcano stands close enough to shape how the city is described.

What are the main landmarks in Colima?

The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe carries the city's colonial architecture. Museums account for most of the rest: the Museo Regional de Historia de Colima, the Museo Palacio de Colima, the Museo Regional de la Cristiada, and the Museo de Ciencia y Tecnología Xoloitzcuintle each hold a different subject. Two galleries add painting.

The Alfonso Michel University Art Gallery and the Fernando del Paso Art Gallery run beside the Museo Universitario de Artes Populares María Teresa Pomar and the Salón del Títere Rosa María Espinal.

What is the history of Colima?

The city carries a 1527 foundation. Colima was established in that year, which places it among the early Spanish foundations of the Mexican mainland, and the colonial architecture of the centre remains the clearest record of that start. The city names the state.

Colima is the capital of the state of the same name and the seat of its municipality, which keeps state and municipal administration in the same streets. Manzanillo, on the coast, is the larger municipality, which leaves Colima second in the state. The Museo Regional de la Cristiada carries the period in its name.

The Museo Regional de Historia de Colima holds the state's account of its own past, and a visitor working through the centre's museums covers most of what the city has chosen to keep. A university anchors the modern city. Its international exchange programmes bring students through Colima in a way that a state capital of this scale would not otherwise see, and the Alfonso Michel University Art Gallery belongs to that same institution.

Growth spread beyond the municipal line. Villa de Álvarez and other municipalities form the Colima metropolitan area with the city.

Where is Colima?

Colima sits near the Colima volcano. That volcano divides the state from Jalisco, and it sets the frame for a city that lies inland from the Pacific coast beaches the state is otherwise known for. The city holds the second-largest municipality of the state, behind Manzanillo on the coast.

Villa de Álvarez runs into it. Together they make the Colima metropolitan area, which takes in other municipalities as well and gives the capital a larger built-up footprint than the city limits suggest.

What is the climate of Colima?

Wet and dry divide the year. Colima lies inside the tropics with the Pacific close by, so the year divides into a wet stretch and a dry one rather than into cold and warm halves. The Colima volcano rises nearby.

Rain arriving off the Pacific reaches the country between the capital and the beaches, and the wet months are what separate one part of the year from the other.

How do you get to Colima?

Two approaches serve the city. The road from Jalisco crosses the ground beside the Colima volcano that divides the two states, while the coastal side connects the capital with Manzanillo and the Pacific beaches. Villa de Álvarez is continuous with the city.

Once inside the centre, the colonial streets, the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the museums line up close enough that a stay here works on foot.