Guadalajara was the third destination that I invited myself along, when Robb & Clint were travelling in February 2026. Depending on who you ask, Guadalajara is either the second or third largest city in Mexico. We had a great time there, walking through the impressive the impressive collection of square and official buildings in the centre of the city, and exploring some of the outer neighbourhoods and parks. Tapatiós and Tapatias have themselves a lovely city, with a modern subway, good restaurants, a large variety of restaurants, galleries. I did find it highly typical of Spanish American cities, but that is not surprising because there was a model for such cities that was applied at the time of their founding.
Photo List (Total 381 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Central Guadalajara (86 photos) - Central Guadalajara consists of a number of linked plazas surrounded by monumental buildings. Moving from west to east, this gallery starts at the Plaza Guadalajara which is fronted by the Catedral de la Asunción de Maria Santisima, continues through plazas that face in every direction from the Cathedral and wanders through several other plazas nearby, like the Plaza Universidad, the Plaza de Armas, and the Plaza de la Liberacion. The Paseo Degollado which is a modern pedestrian street was under construction, but we continued on anyways to the Plaza Tapatia, and finally to the Plaza de Iberoamérica, which is faced by the art gallery Instituto Cultural de Cabañas.
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Central-South Guadalajara (92 photos) - This gallery is everything that is central to the city, but a bit south of the main core. It starts at the rugged Mercado Liberdad, which seemed to sell cowboy boots almost exclusively. After that, we ended up in Barrio de Analco, south of the Plaza Mercado San Juan de Dios, that was low-end shopping and markets, with a lot of gritty photos (I walked through this area twice, so the photos here are an amalgamation of two walks). We carried on for a distance as we made our way to the Los Dos Templos, a large public square housing two the oldest churches in the city. The gallery ends at the Parque Agua Azul.
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Central-North Guadalajara (76 photos) - This gallery is everything that is slightly north of the central downtown. It starts at our hotel and a few buildings around the hotel, then captures some meanders that I made on my own north of that, to the Jardín Augustín Rivera. I went down to the Mercado Corona. On separate trips, I ended up at the Templo San José de Gracia, and later at the Parque Morelos. The gallery ends with a visit to the Panteón with Clint and Robb, which is an old, walled cemetery.
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Colonia Americana and Other West (53 photos) - Our hotel was on the western edge of the downtown, but further west were some attractions including the neighbourhood of Colonia Americana, which is a mix of elegant older buildings and new construction, with restaurants and bars. This gallery starts close to the hotel, includes a visit (on my own) to the Museu de las Artes Universidad de Guadalajara, moves past the Templo Expiatorio del Santisimo Sacramento, and into Colonia Americana. We were there twice, the first time in a failed attempt to visit a local bar. The second time we walked all the way back from Colonia Americana to the hotel, and the last part of the gallery includes that walk.
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Zapopan and Other North-West (74 photos) - On the day that Clint & Robb left, I went on my own to the far north-west of the city. I started at the modern Juan José Arreola Public Library, which is the building that comes up most if you google Guadalajara + Modern Architecture. I wandered back to the Mercado del Mar, and through the historical centre of Zapopan, which is a separate municipality from Guadalajara but which is now joined to it's larger neighbour. I took the subway back just a few stops, and got off at the oddly named Circunvalación Country stop, to wander to the modern towers along a street that I knew in advance would be unpleasant, the Circunvalación Jorge Álvarez del Castillo. I took photos of the these buildings. I could have gone back to the subway, but I decided to walk back downtown, quite a long distance through Guadalajara's endless grid of square blocks down into the neighbourhood of Santa Teresita. What struck me is just how many one-and-two storey buildings there were, and how few stood out. Architecturally, the streets are highly undistinguished.
