Where to Stay in Toluca, Estado de México

What is Toluca known for?

The Cosmovitral, a garden of huge stained-glass murals, glows in the heart of the highest big city in Mexico, and long colonnaded arcades line its central streets. The Nevado de Toluca volcano towers white above the town. Glass and mountain air mark the place.

What are the main landmarks in Toluca?

The Cosmovitral is Toluca's marvel. The old market hall blazes with vast stained-glass murals, the great sight of the city, filling a whole building with coloured light. Churches and arcades line the centre.

The Toluca Cathedral rises over the long colonnaded portales, while the Fine Arts Museum, the Museum José María Velasco, and the Modelo Museum of Science and Industry gather the region's art and learning.

What is the history of Toluca?

Toluca has looked up at its volcano since ancient times. The Matlatzinca people farmed this high valley long before the Aztecs, who conquered it and set the great mountain in their maps of the world. Spain came and built anew.

Missionaries and colonists raised churches and a grid of streets on the plateau, and Toluca grew into a market town famous for the goods that passed through its long arcades. Independence made it a capital. When Mexico won its freedom, Toluca became the seat of the vast State of Mexico, and grand buildings rose around its central squares.

Art came to fill the old market. In the twentieth century the disused market hall was reborn as the Cosmovitral, its walls set with vast stained-glass murals, and museums like the one honouring the painter José María Velasco filled the town. The Toluca Cathedral still rises over the arcades and the plateau.

Where is Toluca?

Toluca lies on a high plateau in central Mexico. The city fills a broad valley over two and a half thousand metres up, below the snow-capped Nevado de Toluca, west of the great basin of Mexico City. Volcanic peaks ring the plain.

The thin mountain air keeps the city cool.

What is the climate of Toluca?

Toluca has a cool highland climate. The great altitude keeps the city mild by day and cold at night all year, and a rainy season brings heavy afternoon storms in summer. Frost is common on winter mornings.

The mountains hold the chill close all year.

How do you get to Toluca?

Toluca lies just west of Mexico City. Highways climb over the mountains from the capital in about an hour, and a train links the two cities, while an airport serves the valley. Buses reach the towns of the high plateau.

Most arrive by road from Mexico City.