Chad and I chose Cuernavaca to be our destination for our overnight Christmas gift this year. The category drawn with Mexico and overnight was Arts & Literature. Cuernavaca fit the bill on a number of fronts. And, it is easily accessible by bus from Mexico City. I booked a hotel for a Wednesday night not long after arriving in Mexico City, about a month in advance. We figured most attractions would be less crowded on weekdays and several seemed to be closed on Monday and/or Tuesday.

Transportation and Arrival

Most buses to Cuernavaca leave from Mexico’s Taxquena bus station, also called Terminal Central del Sur. I looked into prepurchasing bus tickets from online but the company site required a Mexican phone number to receive the tickets. From that research, I knew the buses to Cuernavaca Centro left every half hour or so. The bus station was only about 15 minutes from our place via Uber. We arrived around 8:30 a.m. and bought tickets at the Pullman de Morelos counter for 9:03 a.m. We were early enough to purchase the exact seats I would have chosen online.

The bus itself was very comfortable. There are ceiling tv screens placed at intervals around the bus and they were showing A Wrinkle in Time overdubbed in Spanish. The trip wasn’t smooth enough for reading so we mostly chatted and periodically watched the movie. We arrived in Cuernavaca around 10:20 a.m., a little earlier than I’d expected. Pullman de Morelos has its own small bus station in Cuernavaca (which is in the state of Morelos) just south of the centro historico. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and were ready to explore the town.

Two Art Museums and a Garden

Since the theme of our trip was Art & Literature, we planned to focus on Cuernavaca’s well-reviewed museums. Our first stop was the MMAC Juan Soriano, or Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo. One of the reviews had mentioned wishing they’d brought a picnic to enjoy in the sculpture garden and I had brought some PBJs and carrots along. However, when we arrived this didn’t really seem appropriate, especially since we were required to store our backpack in a locker. 

Luckily the museum was small, with just a couple of exhibits. It is free for locals but we paid 50 pesos each (under $3). Upstairs there was a temporary exhibit by a Japanese artist living in Merida featuring jungle scenes and a few snowflake pieces. It didn’t wow us. Outside, the sculpture garden features 18 pieces by Juan Soriano, a renowned Mexican artist, which we enjoyed more. There was also a small studio out there with a temporary exhibit showcasing a few contemporary artists. 

Our route from our hotel to the museum had taken us through the main garden and plaza of the zocalo, which we really liked. So we backtracked to the main plaza and found a shady bench where we could enjoy our picnic. Afterwards, we picked up a couple of paletas to enjoy at the Plazuela del Zacate.

Chad felt at this point he could use some caffeine so we headed over to the Gramo Cafe, which turned out to be inside the Museo Cassa Gaia where we had planned to next. The cafe was adjacent to the museum’s main attraction, a pool mosaic designed by Diego Rivera, called Gaia. The barista made Chad a very good cortado, which was fun to sip by the pretty pool.

When we entered the main part of the museum, which is free, we learned that the building used to be the house of the Mexican comedian Cantinflas. This thrilled Chad and we really enjoyed getting to wander Cantinflas’s house looking at art, primarily from the mid-20th century. There was a room dedicated to the work of Juan O’Gorman that had a sketch for his UNAM library mural and pieces by Rivera and Orozco and more. The Diego room ironically featured pieces by the artists of La Ruptura, the post-muralist movement we’d learned about at the Muralismo museum in Mexico City. We were a bit sad to learn that only the house was Cantinflas’s, not the art. But we were happy to have the opportunity to use Cantinflas’s bathroom before we left.  

We had a little more time before the 3 p.m. check-in time, so we headed over to the Jardin Borda near our hotel. This helped bring in the Literature portion of our theme. Chad has been trying to read Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowery, which is a favorite novel of one of his friends and is set in a town based on Cuernavaca. At the garden he asked ChatGPT for some of the local locations mentioned in the book and the Jardin Borda was second on the list. Though certainly a little rundown with most of its fountains empty, we enjoyed seeing the two larger water features and some nice trees and flowers. The small entry fee of 30 pesos each sometimes includes a museum or gallery inside but we were warned these were closed when we paid.

Hotel Disappointment

After the garden, we went back to the zocalo for a quick stop at 7-Eleven to get some beer and water for our room and then went to check into our hotel, the Hotel Borda (review below). We were impressed by the room itself, which was spacious and had a balcony overlooking a barranco (ravine). Unfortunately, after putting on our suits and going down to the desk to ask for pool towels, we learned the pool was closed. This was very disappointing because the pool was one of the reasons I chose the hotel. Cuernavaca is quite a bit warmer than Mexico City. It was nearly 90 degrees when we were there and the pool would have been refreshing. Instead we relaxed in the room for a while and then got ready for our evening out.

Drinks and Dinner with a View

We started our date night with a quick visit to the Cuernavaca Cathedral on the grounds of a former monestary. It was nice and had two other churches on the grounds. Then we had cocktails at La Verdad Sospechosa (The Suspicious Truth). Chad got the Jacinta with dark syrup and cacao bitters and I got the Don Garcia with mezcal, cilantro cordial, cherry, sparkling wine and mineral water. Both were interesting and we enjoyed watching a little dog out the window waiting hopefully by the restaurant kitchen across the street. Since we hadn’t had a snack that day, we each ordered a little appetizer of esquites (street corn) which was very good.

I’d made a reservation for a restaurant on the square called Casa Hidalgo for 7:30 p.m. requesting a balcony table. When we arrived slightly before our reservation, we found there were several tables available on the balcony on a Wednesday night. We were especially glad we chose it when we saw the view looking out over the Palacio de Cortes, the home of notorious conquistador Hernando Cortes built in the 1530s. Our meal was excellent starting with a tropical ceviche appetizer and then Chad had chicken with three sauces and I got the local specialty, cecina de yecapixtla, sort of a dried meet with local sides. The ceviche was definitely the highlight, as was trying another local Mexican digestif called agavero after dinner.  

More Museums

The next day, our priority was to see the regional museum inside the Palacio de Cortes, which would open at 9. We went out around 8 to find pastries for breakfast, which we enjoyed at a streetside bakery cafe called Alvaneza. It was a little loud from traffic noise but the staff were very friendly, the pastries were great, and we were able to get our preferred morning drinks, cappuccino for Chad and ginger tea for me. 

Since we had a little time before 9, we decided to walk down to Calle Humboldt, a street ChatGPT had mentioned as an inspiration site for Under the Volcano that was just down the road from the palacio. As we walked toward the street, we noticed the hotel we were walking toward was named something “Vulcan,” Spanish for volcano. Sure enough, it was Hotel Bajo el Vulcan, named for the book, and the building it was in was called Casa de Malcom Lowery and they had a display with his photo inside. We went in and I explained to the woman at the desk that my husband liked the book. “Oh, Malcolm!” she said as Chad looked at his photo and she invited us to come in and see the hotel. I wish I’d known about it so we could have stayed there, especially since it had a functioning pool. It looked very nice overall, though we saw only one guest. But it was very fun to discover the hotel by chance and really made our morning.

When we arrived back at the palacio, the security person said it wouldn’t open until 10 because they were repairing an exhibit (I think, he said it in Spanish). Our other museum also wouldn’t open until 10 so we decided to go back to our hotel to pack up and check out before our sightseeing, leaving our bags at the front desk again. We returned to the palacio at 10:05 but it still wasn’t open. The security guy indicated he was waiting for a call on his walkie talkie. So we went to the Robert Brady Museum first.

Robert Brady was an American artist and art collector from Iowa and the museum is his former home filled with his collection. It was quite impressive both architecturally and from the decor and fun to explore. Most of the photos of him in the home were from the swinging 70s. He looked like a fun guy. We spent less than an hour exploring the house, but it was well worth the 70 peso ($4) admission. 

We were feeling a little hungry so we decided to get some juice from the kiosk in the Jardin Juarez before returning again to the palacio. They had tons of flavors to choose from but we went with old favorite – jugo verde and vampiro (with carrot and beet). Both were great and very filling. We saw the security guy as we were crossing the Plaza de Armas and he told us the museum was finally open.

 

It also didn’t take long to explore regional museum, which started (like most Mexican history museums) with a few rooms showing artifacts from the indigenous cultures that were there. Then there were a few rooms about local agriculture, biology, and geology. Upstairs, there was a large room with frescoes on the ceiling and a balcony with a very famous mural by Diego Rivera called History of Morelos, Conquest and Revolution. The mural was certainly impressive and worth seeing, and I think the main reason for the high price tag of the museum at 210 pesos ($12). But it certainly fit the art theme of our trip.  

Brunch and Return to CDMX

After the museums, we made our way back to our hotel, stopping for brunch at a cute courtyard restaurant called Los Campesinos. Though they didn’t have a lot of other customers, it had great reviews on Google and the food was just what we wanted – chilequiles for Chad and a veggie omelet for me, and a side of Mexican pastries. 

After brunch we retrieved our bags from the hotel and went to the Pullman de Morelos bus station. The afternoon buses to CDMX seemed to depart hourly so we bought tickets for the 2 p.m. bus and had about 20 minutes to wait before it boarded. On the ride back, the overdubbed movie was unfamiliar to us but I figured out the title, Blinded by the Light, by Googling “movie about london teens obsessed with bruce springsteen.” It was actually kind of interesting and though the ride back took longer due to the Mexico City traffic, it was comfortable.

At the bus station we looked into a taxi but the quoted price seemed high for a two-mile ride. So we walked a block or two and got an Uber for half the cost. 

I feel like we did everything we wanted in Cuernavaca (except swim) so we probably won’t need to return, but it turned out to be a perfect choice for our Arts-&-Literature-themed Christmas trip. The total cost including Ubers, bus tickets, meals, and attractions was just $325: $12 Uber, $48 bus, $54 for hotel, $42 museums, and $170 for meals and snacks (about half being our dinner at Casa Hidalgo, which was totally worth it). 

Hotel Borda Review – The pool was closed because they ran out of the chemicals – Normally I hesitate to give negative reviews but I really can’t recommend this hotel. On the positive side, the room looked like the photos, appeared to be clean, and we had a balcony overlooking the ravine. However, the towels in the room were very old and worn out with holes. Worse was that one reason we chose this hotel was for it’s pool, a must because Cuernavaca is so worn. But the pool was closed during our stay because they didn’t have the chemicals needed. That is just poor management and was very disappointing. The location was also not as convenient to the historic center as I hoped. It wasn’t a long walk but the streets don’t always have sidewalks so it wasn’t very pleasant. I wish I’d chosen a different hotel for our one night in Cuernavaca.