782 Travel Guide

La Huasteca sits at the foot of the Sierra Madre Oriental southwest of Monterrey—a natural adventure park cradled by towering red limestone cliffs and deep canyons. The walls and gorges are prime for rock-climbing, rappelling and hiking, while a cable car and glass viewpoint let casual visitors savour the grand scenery. Mist wraps the peaks at dawn; dusk gilds the cliffs red. It is Monterrey's wildest nearby escape and a favourite of outdoor and photography lovers.

Paseo Santa Lucía is Monterrey's man-made canal promenade, built in 2007 for the Universal Forum of Cultures. Running about 2.5 km, it links the downtown Macroplaza with Parque Fundidora to the east in one continuous landscaped corridor. Fountains, relief murals and cafés line the waterway; you can walk the full length or ride one of the flat-bottomed boats. After dark the lighting comes on and it becomes Monterrey's favourite evening stroll.

The Centro Cultural Alfa is Monterrey's science and technology museum, founded in 1978 by the Alfa group, its main block a tilted cylinder of exposed concrete with an unmistakable profile. Inside, interactive displays cover physics, astronomy and the human body, with a large pendulum in the atrium; the top level holds an inclined dome cinema showing astronomy and nature films. A separate glass pavilion in the grounds houses Rufino Tamayo's stained-glass mural El Universo.

MARCO, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, opened in 1991 to a design by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, beside the Macroplaza next to the cathedral. The building speaks in heavy walls, blocks of colour and geometric light wells; at the entrance stands Juan Soriano's outsized bronze dove, La Paloma, now one of the city's emblems. The programme and collection centre on Latin American contemporary art, and the central patio with its shallow pool, lit from above, is the most admired part of the architecture.

Parque Fundidora occupies the works of the former Monterrey steel company; when production stopped in 1986 the sheds and blast furnaces were not demolished but kept and converted into a city park. Rust-red Blast Furnace No. 3 is now the landmark, with a viewing platform up top; old workshops serve as galleries, theatres and museums, while rails, pipework and cranes run between the lawns. Connected to the Santa Lucía canal walk, the park is large enough for cycling and running and regularly hosts festivals and major exhibitions.

Monterrey's Macroplaza, officially the Gran Plaza, was created in the 1980s by clearing several city blocks, covering some 40 hectares and ranking among the largest civic squares in the world. It runs north–south, linking the cathedral, the state government palace, the city hall and several museums; at the northern end stands the Faro del Comercio, a concrete slab about 70 m high that sweeps green laser beams across the city at night. Lawns, pools and sculpture are interleaved along its length, and it functions as the centre of daily life in Monterrey.