A RIOT OF COLOUR

The Mexican city of Querétaro is often overlooked compared to its neighbours, but Phoebe Harper finds it bursting with beautiful gardens, great restaurants and a lively music scene

- Phoebe Harper

It's Friday night in a dance hall on the outskirts of Querétaro. The crumbling walls of the old textile factory that once employed this entire neighbourhood reverberate with the pulse of cumbia music.

Under a vast disco ball, pretty young things flock like birds of paradise. Outside, punters gather under festoons of fairy lights to quaff craft beers, a Cervecería Hércules (a Mexican brewery) speciality. They spend their evenings at open-air cinema nights, listening to live music, or brushing up on bachata moves at the Salon Salvaje.

This happening spot embodies the new wave of energy that is taking over Querétaro. Pronouncing the name of this central Mexican state and its capital, Santiago de Querétaro (known as Querétaro), is the first hurdle. It's supposed to roll off the tongue: kay-reh-taro.

For a city you may never have heard of, it boasts a significant legacy, having twice served as Mexico's capital due to its pivotal role in the struggle for national sovereignty.

As the nexus of Mexico's data centre industry, Querétaro has become one of the fastest-growing cities in the northern hemisphere, its vast industrial urban sprawl slowly encroaching on the semiarid plains.

Yet the city preserves an undeniable charm. Often overlooked for its charismatic northwestern neighbour, San Miguel de Allende, or dwarfed by the appeal of CDMX (Mexico City) to the southeast, Querétaro’s star is now in the ascendant.

Last year, state tourism grew by 17 per cent, and that’s set to continue with the launch of an electric passenger train from CDMX to Querétaro planned for 2027.

A welcome antidote to the frenzied vibes of the megalopolis, its charming centro histórico is a postcard-perfect patchwork of buildings with flaking facades in faded pastels, crowned with blazing bougainvillaea.