Cholula Travel Guide

The Museo de la Ciudad de Cholula in Puebla state serves as the interpretive gateway to Cholula's archaeology and colonial history. The town is known for Tlachihualtepetl, the pyramid with the largest volume in the world — the mound now crowned by the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Through excavated artefacts, models and panels, the museum lays out the pyramid's successive building phases, the pre-Hispanic urban layout, and how a church came to sit atop a temple after the Spanish conquest. Visiting here first makes the mound and its tunnels legible.

The Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios stands on top of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, begun in 1594 and rebuilt repeatedly after earthquakes, so that most of what stands is 19th century. Yellow-washed with white trim, its twin bell towers and dome are visible far across the plain; the summit terrace gives a full circuit of view over Cholula's many churches and, in clear weather, the Popocatépetl volcano. Nowhere is the Spanish practice of building a church atop a pagan temple stated more bluntly.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula (Tlachihualtépetl, also called the Pirámide de Tepanapa) is the largest pyramid in the world by volume, roughly 400 m along each side and exceeding the Great Pyramid of Giza in bulk. It was not built at once but in successive phases from the 3rd century BC; later abandoned, it was gradually buried under soil and vegetation until it read simply as a hill — on whose summit the Spanish raised the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, long unaware of what lay beneath. Excavated sections of the base and a stretch of archaeological tunnel are open today.