Plaza de Armas

Introduction

Queretaro's Plaza de Armas, formally the Plaza de la Independencia, is the oldest public space in a city laid out in 1537 and inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1996. The square is calm and well proportioned, ringed by colonial arcades, eighteenth-century mansions and tall Indian laurel trees that throw enough shade to make this the coolest place to rest on a Mexican highland afternoon. The Palacio de Gobierno on the north side, also called the Casa de la Corregidora, was originally the Casas Reales y Carceles, the Royal Houses and Jails. Its name comes from its most famous occupant, Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, wife of the corregidor and a heroine of the War of Independence. In September 1810 the conspiracy was uncovered here and she sent the warning out from the palace that set the war alight. She is buried in the Mausoleum of the Corregidora. The central fountain was completed in 1843 in honour of the Marquis of Villa del Villar del Aguila, who financed the city's aqueduct. The local nickname Dog Square needs some explaining: the original design set four metal dogs at the corners of the square base, spitting water from their mouths, beneath a ten-metre column topped by a copper statue. In 1867 a cannonball during the siege knocked the statue off, and in 1892 the monument was rebuilt without the column and without the dogs, the marquis recarved in pink limestone. So what stands in the square today is the pink-stone marquis, not the dogs. The name Dog Square comes from four metal dogs that have been gone for more than a century. Early evenings and weekends are the liveliest, with the fountain lit after dark; the palace is generally open 07:00-21:00 and free, with murals of the independence figures in its courtyard. Every September 15 the Grito de Independencia is proclaimed from its steps to packed crowds. Along the Andador Libertad pedestrian street you can walk from the plaza to the aqueduct, built 1726-1738 with 74 or 75 arches, and the Santa Cruz convent of 1660-1698, now the regional museum, making a half-day old-town circuit. November to April brings mild dry-season afternoons; from May the afternoon rains set in, so carry an umbrella.

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